


make progress together

by frankoceansmoonriver



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1940s, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Steve Rogers, F/M, Gay Bucky Barnes, M/M, PTSD mentions, Period-Typical Homophobia, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-23 22:41:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19160446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankoceansmoonriver/pseuds/frankoceansmoonriver
Summary: He feels like Steve’s mistress. He feels hollowed out. He feels like a jammed gun still trying to go off. When he’s not with Steve he convinces himself he’s ruining Steve’s life, and though he tries, he’s too selfish to stop. When he’s with Steve, he’d fight God himself to keep it, this tangible perfection that makes him drunk and anchors him in ways he did not know existed.Or, the one where they both survived the war, Bucky loves Steve now, has loved Steve since he was fifteen, and the year is 1945.





	make progress together

_Loving anybody and being loved by anybody is a tremendous danger, a tremendous responsibility. Loving of children, raising of children. The terrors homosexuals go through in this society would not be so great if the society itself did not go through so many terrors which it doesn’t want to admit. The discovery of one’s sexual preference doesn’t have to be a trauma. It’s a trauma because it’s such a traumatizing society._

James Baldwin “Go The Way Your Blood Beats” Interviewed by Richard Goldstein, 1984

 

 

**May 8, 1945**

_God dammit honey, God fucking dammit,_ Bucky thinks. He takes a drag from his cigarette. He watches Steve laugh at something Gabe has said. They look so wildly happy. He watches Steve’s new, godlike body walk over to Peggy and kiss her. He watches Morita crack a smile at Dum Dum and shake his head, then begin to laugh hysterically, so hard he has to hold his sides. The war is over. It’s finally fucking over. Bucky is looking forward to a lot of things, but it’s mainly the idea of sleeping for a month straight that keeps Bucky from falling apart, watching Steve lean into Carter. They’re good for each other. That’s what Bucky wants to believe.   
Eventually, Steve pulls away. Pegs is a busy dame after all.   
Steve walks to Bucky. He’s still wearing the dumbshit suit. Bucky hates that thing. He hates the suit. Steve is smiling so wide his face might crack in half. Bucky blows smoke out the side of his mouth and lets the movement become a smile. He doesn’t feel much like smiling, but Bucky’ll do it for Steve. He’d do anything for Steve.   
And everyone is so happy right now, Bucky can’t disturb that. After all, they’re going home.

 

 

**October 6, 1932**

_So this is how it’s gonna go,_ Bucky thinks as Steve breathes shallowly next to him. He has a fever again. Second time in just as many weeks, but that’s no surprise. The weather is turning cold and it happens every year. Has happened every year for the better part of a decade.   
_So this is how it’s gonna go,_ he thinks as Steve’s foot twitches in his sleep. This is how his life is going to play out. He won’t tell a single soul.   
He is fifteen. His hand shakes as he brushes Steve’s hair off his forehead. Steve doesn’t know. He won’t and can’t know any of it. There is fear in Bucky’s whole body, cold and terrible at what he feels curled up next to Steve all night. _So this is how it’s gonna go._   
It’s been piling up, as of late. He knows he stares at Steve too long and just the other day when he was cleaning Steve up after a fight, Bucky let his fingers linger too long on Steve’s bashed in cheekbone.   
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Bucky had asked, and Steve had smiled so sweet.   
“I can’t help myself,” Steve had said.  
“Just don’t know when to quit.”  
“Nope.”   
And Bucky had laughed, with his hand still on Steve’s small face. He’d removed his hand like he’d been burned when he realized what he’d been doing: rubbing his thumb over Steve’s bloodied cheekbone. Those cheekbones were always nice. Stevie was the prettiest boy in Brooklyn and he had no idea. Stevie didn’t know shit. He remained oblivious, never suspecting all the things Bucky had been dreaming about with his mouth shut tight.   
So this is how it’s gonna go. How it’s been going for the longest time. Cars honk outside. Bucky hears a couple arguing in the street. Steve sleeps on, small and precious as ever. Bucky’s throat feels tight. He pushes it down like everything else.  
“I think I’m in love with you,” Bucky whispers, so quiet he thinks he might’ve dreamed saying it. Steve sleeps on. Oblivious.

 

 

**August 14, 1945**

Bucky wakes screaming. This is nothin’ new. Bucky screams, and Steve puts his hands on him to try to comfort him. Steve’s hands are warm and steady. They’re unbelievably nice, but Bucky’s already been crying from whatever it was he was dreaming about. Crying and screaming like a little kid, it’s God damn embarrassing. It’s embarrassing, but at the same time, it’s Steve, and Steve has seen Bucky every which way. It shouldn’t matter, but fuck, Steve is so pretty and he’s too fucking close. What the hell is Steve doing so close to Bucky?   
“Bucky, Bucky it’s okay, hey, look at me pal,” Steve says. He is cupping Bucky’s face. Bucky loves him so bad he turns to putty in Steve’s hands but he can’t do what he really wants to do about it. He’s never gonna be able to do what he wants about it.   
“Get the fuck off me Rogers,” Bucky says, pushing Steve’s stupid, too big hands off his face. But that’s not right, because his hands might be the one thing that stayed the exact same size. Those artist fingers were always so pretty, and too big for the rest of him. Just like his bravery. Just like his heart.   
Steve moves away, but he looks like Bucky has slapped him. Bucky knows. He’s never talked to Steve like that. Not in this setting. He’s shouted at Steve a thousand times but not like this. Not when they’re curled up in bed. But fuck, what the hell are they doing sharing a bed more nights than not anyway?  
See, the impossible had happened. Good ole Pegs had said no to Steve when he had bared his soul to her. He had offered her everything he had, and she had said no. She had, according to Steve, done so gently and with love, despite everything, but she had still said no. _She has a career to think of Buck, she can’t be married to Captain America,_ Steve had slurred, and sure, alcohol didn’t work on him, but Stark was one smart cookie, and had invented some sort of super special serum based whiskey. The stuff smelled like fuckin’ gasoline. Bucky had been sticking to the regular stuff thank you very much. _But you ain’t Captain America,_ Bucky had insisted, in spite of himself, because at his core, he’s a real fuckin’ masochist. _For all intents and purposes I am,_ Steve had said, and had finished off his drink. He had looked so damn sad, like someone had shot him in the chest, and Bucky had had no idea what to do about it, other than pour Stevie another drink. Bucky himself had gotten real hammered that night, knowing that, if Peggy had said no, that meant baby Stevie was still a free man, and that was never ever something that Bucky had computed into after war life. Hell, he hadn’t even expected to survive.   
Bucky pushes himself up and off the bed. Him and Steve have shared a bed since they were ten years old, so really it shouldn’t be no different. But things have changed. Bucky and Steve aren’t little kids. They went to war. They came back. They’re different people.  
Bucky knows, at least, he’s God damn different.   
They did something to his head before Steve came and got him, and after that he was a better soldier. That’s what scares him.   
Still, it’s been three months. Steve and Bucky are back in Brooklyn. They go to see Bucky’s Ma every Sunday for dinner. Becca still gives Bucky shit for being late.   
And still, Bucky is in love with Steve, and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do about it. Just like when he was fifteen. Some things never change.   
“Buck?” Steve asks, all patient yet nervous like he didn’t kill men with his bare hands a few months ago. For Bucky, he always goes soft. It’s infuriating.   
“Whaddayawant, Rogers?” Bucky says, making his sentence one long word like he’s drunk, ‘cause that’s how he feels.   
“Are you…” Steve trails off, his eyes averted to the mattress. “Are you okay?”   
“Jesus, yeah I’m fine. Would ya lay off pal?” Bucky thinks about leaving their little apartment. He thinks about grabbing his jacket and storming out like they do in the pictures. He thinks about crawling back into bed, on his hands and knees like the desperate shmuck that he is, and just laying back down next to Steve, letting his body mold around Steve’s like it has a hundred times, and apologizing to him, because he looks like a wounded animal.   
Instead, Bucky picks up his pack of smokes, goes to the kitchen table, and lights one.   
“Steve, why don’t you go back to bed, huh? I’ll be along,” he says, and it sounds like he’s telling his best girl to settle down, and Bucky supposes he is.   
Steve looks confused at first, and that makes sense. It’s not as though Bucky really thought Steve would just go back to bed. Not after that.   
Steve leaves bed and joins Bucky at their little kitchen table. Outside, a car honks. Outside, Bucky hears a couple fighting in the street. Bucky is fifteen. Bucky loves Steve. Bucky is afraid Steve is gonna die. Some things never change.   
“What were you dreaming about?” Steve asks, one giant hand splayed over the table.   
“Just some Nazis in my head, stirring my brains around like soup, no biggie.” Bucky takes a drag, and only belatedly realizes his hands are shaking.  
“Is that all?”  
“Yeah, that’s all.” Bucky won’t look at Steve, he refuses.   
“Wanna tell me about it?”  
“Nah. Not really. You can go get the pack of cards though.”

 

 

 

**May 2, 1934**  
  
Bucky bites down on his knuckles.   
Steve is just outside the bathroom door. Bucky put himself between Steve and a guy double Bucky’s size and Bucky doesn’t want Steve to know how bad the bruises on his ribs are.  
They fucking hurt.  
“Buck, you okay?” Steve asks through the door. His lip had been swelling earlier. Bucky hopes he’s keeping ice on it. Steve’s got such a pretty mouth.   
“Yeah Stevie. M’fine,” Bucky manages.

 

 

**September 20, 1945**

Carter offers him a job. It’s not anything nice. It’s _extraction_. Bucky really isn’t sure he wants to do it. He needs something, he knows. He’s bored, but he’s tired too. He’s been drinking more than he ever has before, but he doesn’t know if it’s ‘cause he’s bored or if Steve does shit in his sleep like throw an arm over Bucky’s waist or take up smoking himself, but only when he’s real fucking pissed or agitated. Steve started training soldiers. Stevie is creating an army of a hundred other little Steves or something like that. Bucky doesn’t know how he feels about that either.   
He had met up with Carter in London. She had had a tired look around her eyes and in the corners of her mouth, but not in a way that Steve would have seen.   
“Hey Ma’am,” Bucky says. He gives her a smile, but she sees straight through him. Him and Carter are made of the same stuff. They are both half hidden and angry. It’s why they ended up in a fight half the time. Still, Bucky respects the hell out of her. Even when she had told Steve no.   
“Sergeant Barnes. You look well,” Carter says, but he can see in her eyes that she doesn’t mean it. Bucky knows.   
“Don’t lie. I ain’t as dumb as I look.”  
Bucky hugs her, and she presses a light kiss to his cheek, and that surprises him though it shouldn’t. It feels like he hasn’t seen her in years but less than six months ago they had been sharing cigarettes and coffee, huddling over maps together, sneaking under Steve’s nose ‘cause he was too good to know what was going on. Bucky only felt a little guilty about that.  
She had offers him a job in France, then in Italy, then in Jamaica.   
“Could I sleep on it?”   
“Of course. Take your time,” Peggy says. Then, unexpectedly, “I understand if you don’t want to leave him.”   
She may as well have knocked him over the head with a bat.   
Half of him wants to lash out at her. Tell her he’s a big boy and he don’t need to be around Steve all the time. They can actually be separated if they really chose to be. He wants to yell in her face a little. He wants to be angry that she can see right through him because she knows him, because she knows Steve, and Bucky wants to eat his gun or sleep for a few years.   
He shrugs.   
“I know it’s no good to leave the big baby alone, but he can feed himself if the occasion really calls for it.”  
“I’m not talking about leaving him alone James,” Peggy said, so quiet, just for Buck.   
“One of us has to look out for him, huh?” Bucky says, and he knows it was low, it was a stupid fucking dig, but he has to say something. Of course, Carter doesn’t bat an eye. “I’ll think about it. I will,” Bucky says.   
He knows he doesn’t expect to take the job. He’s too fucking tired. He used to think he would want all that. Now he just wants to sleep.

 

 

**October 14, 1945**  
  
“Sweetheart,” Steve says in his sleep. They literally have two fuckin’ bedrooms. They have enough money now that they could afford two God damn apartments. Bucky is in bed with Steve again. If any of the other Howlies knew they always slept like this, on purpose, Bucky wonders what they would think. “Sweetheart,” breathes Steve again, all high pitched and lovely. Bucky goes to sleep in his own bed.

 

 

 

**September 5, 1933**  


Steve is always sick. This is nothing new, but God damn if it doesn’t get old and each time it happens it might as well be the first time as well as the first because Bucky is sick with worry every time.   
It’s always made worse when Steve tries to tell him he’s fine through a clenched jaw, looking at Bucky with sickdumb bloodshot eyes.   
“I’m fine, lemme be,” Steve says, trying to get Bucky out of their apartment and off to work. Trouble is, Bucky spends entire days thinking that Steve’ll be dead by the time he gets back and then Bucky really won’t know what he’ll do. Lose his mind probably.

 

 

**November 30, 1945**  
  
Bucky gets himself well and truly drunk because he’s been thinking real hard about accepting Peggy’s offer. He tells Steve about it, and Steve smiles in a funny way that Bucky isn’t used to. He almost looks…angry with him.   
“You gonna torture people for a living?” Steve asks. He’s sober, of course. Bucky is looking at his hands, lying flat against the kitchen table. Bucky’s hands are dry. His knuckles are gonna crack.   
“She called it extraction. I dunno pal. What the fuck else am I gonna do?”  
“You were gonna be an engineer. You don’t have to be a soldier,” Steve says. He reaches out across the table. For a moment, Bucky thinks that Steve is going to take Bucky’s hand in his own, all gentle and sweet. It’s an insane fantasy for all of five seconds. Steve pokes Bucky in the wrist. It’s almost as good.   
“I don’t know how to be anything but a soldier anymore,” Bucky confesses, then downs another shot of whiskey, because at this point it simply does not matter.   
“You can be whatever you want to be. You can be…anything,” Steve says, resting a hand on his chin. He’s so beautiful it’s stupid. He’s so beautiful Bucky could spit. He’s got a bit of stubble, rough on his cheeks and chin. Bucky wonders what it would feel like to have that scratch against his own face. He thinks of placing his thumb on Steve’s mouth, prying his mouth open and sticking his tongue down Steve’s throat. Bucky shakes his head, pushing the thought aside. It’s terrible, the things he thinks sometimes.   
“So could you,” Bucky says, and leans back in his chair. “You could be so much more than the monkey suit. You always were. You don’t gotta train those little babies in uniform. You know, I always hoped you wouldn’t have to see war. Did I ever tell you? I never wanted you to see any of that. Remember the time one of them Krauts almost got Gabe, and you were so fuckin’ mad you bashed the guy’s brains out with your shield? I mean, was it kind of amazing? Of course. Of course it was. But it was also scary to see you like that. You were always lookin’ for a fight but come on, not like that. The worst part too? I saw myself. When the fuck did we get like that?”  
Bucky is clearly far too drunk, but Steve doesn’t make him feel bad for it. Steve is nodding like he understands. “You could be anything. Why do you keep doing it?”  
Steve laughs. “I like it. I feel like I’ve got a purpose. I guess we’ll see if we ever have to fight again, but I think I like it.” Steve shrugs. “Did you always hate it? You always seemed so good at it. At fighting.”  
“Yeah, I am good at fighting.”  
“But do you hate it?”  
Bucky doesn’t answer.

He knows, at the end of the day that there ain’t no way he can go back now. He can’t sit quietly and go back to school to be an engineer, a pipe dream he believed in years ago when he was just a baby. He can’t learn from Stark or try to build something spectacular with his hands. His hands are trigger happy now, they’ve killed too many things to create anything good.   
  
Three days later he tells Carter yes.

_I could be anything, anything but yours._

**November 3, 1937**

Stevie is on the floor, leaning against his bed, and he’s drawing Bucky. He’s wearing a big green sweater that is too big for him, and the sleeves are falling over his knuckles while he draws. It looks lovely against the color of his hair, against the blue of his eyes. He had started coughing a week ago. Bucky had told him if he leaves the house too often he’s gonna kill Steve his fuckin self.   
“Do you always gotta do that?” Bucky asks, catching the baseball he has thrown up at the ceiling. He’s lying down, hair falling in his face. He needs a haircut. He wants a cigarette, but can’t. Not with Stevie coughing again.   
“Sorry, I don’t have a lot to work with, it’s just me and your ugly mug in this apartment.”  
Bucky laughs, then catches the ball again. “Hand it over then, lemme see!”  
“It ain’t done yet!” Steve says, but Bucky bolts up off his own bed and snatches the sketchbook out of Steve’s hands. Steve lets out a high pitched yelp and laughs as Bucky pushes Steve’s shoulder gently, as if he would have wrestled Steve for the sketchbook.

 

 

**August 9, 1945**

The day they drop the second bomb, Steve shows up at the apartment early. He hadn’t been due back for another twenty hours, and Bucky isn’t really surprised. Gabe had called. Morita wasn’t doing well. Steve had spoken to Morita. Bucky wishes he could have been there.   
Steve goes straight to the bathroom. He wretches over the toilet.   
Of the two of them, Bucky has always been the crier. Steve never allowed himself to cry much, but Bucky figures these are tears for others and not for himself so he’s allowing it.   
Steve leans against the wall of the bathroom, panicking. He has his head in his hands. Bucky kneels down next to him and puts his hands on Steve’s knees.   
“What did I do?” Steve asks, helpless.   
“You did good pal,” Bucky says.   
Steve shakes.  
“C’mere,” Bucky says. He pushes Steve all the way down onto the bathroom floor so he’s lying on his back. Bucky lays his full weight onto the top of Steve and hides his nose in Steve’s hair. “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s all over buddy.”  
Steve clutches at Bucky, fistfuls of Bucky’s shirt in his fingers as he shakes and Bucky tells himself it isn’t strange because on nights when Steve was sick and shaking something violent Bucky had done this exact same thing.   
“I thought they didn’t realize the first time,” Steve whispers. “I thought we didn’t know. How could they do it again?”  
“I don’t know, but it ain’t your fault.”  
Steve doesn’t reply, which means he doesn’t agree. He shakes under the weight of Bucky for full minutes before he finally collects himself and whispers “Thank you,” with his head still against the bathroom tile.

 

 

**May 29, 1945**

They’ve been home for one week.   
The sound of the city at night is devastatingly wonderful. The first night back, Bucky had walked around the city all night, alone. He had walked these streets a thousand times but after he was back, the familiar sounds and smells had seemed more like ghosts than something Bucky had truly missed. The city makes him happy, it just doesn’t feel real.   
Now, Bucky has a record playing real quiet. He smokes a cigarette and sits on the fire escape. It could be five years ago. Could be, if he shuts his eyes and lets everything melt away. It’s a different apartment and the music is new. The song hadn’t been written yet in 1940.   
It’s peaceful. The wind picks up and ruffles Bucky’s hair. The tobacco is the one thing that’s never left him. Through working at the docks and frequenting dance halls to a hotel in London, to mud up to his knees in France, to now. Bucky leans against the railing. His eyes are shut and for one moment, he’s thankful he lived through it. He never thought he would.   
He hears Steve scream from his bedroom, and Bucky gets cigarette ash all over his white shirt. He scrambles up to his feet and crawls back inside.   
“Steve? Stevie?” Bucky calls. Steve sounds like he’s in pain, and it’s loud.   
Bucky walks into the bedroom. Steve’s eyes are still shut but his face is crumpled in anguish. He’s shouting but nothing is coherent. Bucky touches his shoulder. “Wake up Steve!”   
Steve’s eyes fly open and he gasps. Bucky puts his hands on either side of Steve’s face. “Hey, hey Stevie. You were only dreaming.”   
“Bucky?”  
“Yeah pal. It’s just me.”  
“The little girl in the snow,” Steve says. Bucky sighs. He remembers her. He remembers how they had watched her take her last breaths through her blue lips.   
“I know. You couldn’t have saved her Steve.”  
Steve nods, but he’s crying anyway. “Did I wake you up?”  
“No. No, I wasn’t sleeping. I was out on the fire escape.” Bucky runs a hand through Steve’s fine hair. He hates how pretty he is. Steve grabs Bucky’s wrist. He runs his thumb over Bucky’s pulse point. Bucky swallows.   
“Sorry.”   
“Don’t be.”  
“Will you stay in here with me?”   
Bucky pauses. They haven’t shared a bed since before the war, when they were too poor to afford two beds let alone too bedrooms. He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t say yes because it would mean more to him than it would to Steve. But still, Steve asks so sweet.   
“Okay,” Bucky says. He gets into bed and tries not to let his hands wander. It doesn’t last long, because Steve turns on his side towards Bucky and throws an arm over his chest. Bucky huffs out a breath and tries not to die when he feels how his right hand is brushing against Steve’s stomach. Steve falls back to sleep. Bucky doesn’t sleep. He listens to the far away hum of the record he had left on.

 

 

**July 8, 1945**

“I’m gonna ask her to marry me,” Steve says. He goes red as soon as he says it, which is wretchedly sweet.   
“Oh,” Bucky says. Steve pulls a little black box out of his pocket. He opens it. The ring is beautiful and real classy like it should be. “When?”  
“Next week. I bought this yesterday. Do you think it’s okay?”  
“It’s perfect Rogers.”

 

 

**February 4, 1946**

Bucky is so panicked and angry. He doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to do. Steve is looking at him, frustration seeping out. Steve had tried to touch him after a bad dream again. Bucky knows it’s probably unreasonable, because when Steve wakes up wide eyed and gasping for breath Bucky still finds himself holding Steve, waiting for the fear to pass. If Steve touches Bucky though, Bucky panics. He used to let it happen, in the beginning, but Bucky can no longer handle the soft kisses Steve places on his fingers or at his temple. It’s too painful, because Bucky wants so much more.   
“Why won’t you let me help you?” Steve asks.   
“I don’t need help, I’m fuckin’ fine!”  
“You’re always saying that, but Buck, it’s getting worse! You’re waking up screaming more often than not, I just want to fucking help you! You’re my best friend you asshole!”   
“I’m very aware of what happens when I try to shut my eyes. You don’t have to tell me.”   
Steve takes a step towards Bucky. He’s wearing a blue sweater over his white collared shirt and it’s bringing out his eyes. Bucky hates him. Bucky goes into the kitchen and finds his cigarettes. He lights one and doesn’t look Steve in the eye.   
“Buck. I just want to know you’re okay. I want to know why you won’t even look at me anymore. Did I do something wrong?”  
“Nah Stevie, you didn’t do anything wrong.” Bucky longs for a fucking stiff drink. He wants to be anywhere but here.   
“Something is different Buck. You can tell me. I won’t even be mad. Do you want to live somewhere else? I don’t care. Did something happen with this new job? I know what it is, okay, I know you and Peggy like to talk over my head like I’m a damn idiot but you can tell me.”  
Bucky feels part of his chest collapse upon hearing Steve say her name. It’s been eight months since she’d told him no.   
“We don’t talk over your head because we think you’re stupid. How could you think that.”   
“You do it for _some_ reason.”  
“We do it because you’re better than us, Steve. Fuck.”   
Bucky turns away. He turns towards their shared window, in their shared apartment, in the middle of Brooklyn where they grew up together. Bucky Barnes has known Steve Rogers since he was six years old. He’s loved him for all twenty two years he’s known him, and though that love has changed enormously it’s still the same truth: he’d do anything at all for Steve, anything he asked, which is why, right now, Bucky can’t look him in the eye.   
“I think you both have the wrong idea,” Steve says. It’s quiet, but Bucky can hear him well enough. “I just don’t know what you want from me anymore.”   
“If you don’t know by now you are so much fuckin’ dumber than you look,” Bucky says, voice hard, but feeling as though he’s been stabbed in his gut. His hand shakes as he puts out the cigarette he’d been holding. He thinks he’s gonna die. He’s gonna die because Steve is finally gonna know. Steve is holding Bucky’s face in his hands, his dumb giant artist’s hands, fingers long and soft and smooth just like they always were, even before the serum. Bucky feels manic. He feels so damn crazy. “Stevie I ain’t got my head on straight.” Bucky laughs, and it sounds wet. He realizes he’s started crying, like the little fairy that he is. “Why can’t you just leave me alone huh? It’s bad enough as it is, I never wanted you to look at me like this.” He’s rambling now, he knows. He can’t look at anything but Steve, given how close they are, but he still keeps trying to not look at his big blues eyes. He looks at Steve’s chin, at his stupid nose, at the crease in between his eyebrows that is getting thicker with concern and confusion.   
“Buck, look at me,” Steve says.   
“No fuckin’ way pal. You better get your hands offa me,” Bucky hears himself saying, far away. He laughs again. “I mean it buddy, get your hands off of me, I’ve killed men for less.”   
“Would you please shut up!” Steve says. He’s got his hands all over Bucky. His fingers are digging into Bucky’s upper arms. Bucky can feel Steve’s thumbnail through the fabric of his shirt.   
“What do you want from me?!” Bucky all but screams, and he’s trying to push Steve away, but Steve is relentless, and Bucky thinks back to a time when Steve was small and skinny and mad at Bucky for getting too drunk again, trying to hold Bucky up in the stairwell, huffing loudly out of his nose. Steve hadn’t been able to hold him up, but he sure was trying, while Bucky had laughed so hard he was nearly crying, piss drunk and finding Steve’s serious face endlessly amusing. The situation didn’t look dissimilar.   
“I want you to fucking. Look. At me,” Steve says.” His voice is hard, angry, it’s his Captain Asshole voice, and Bucky could just cry about that.   
Bucky shuts his eyes, shudders, then opens them. He looks at Steve, for the first time, possibly, ever.   
Steve’s lips are parted just a little, he’s breathing hard, and his expression is soft. His eyes are on fire. Bucky doesn’t quite get what he’s looking at. He blinks hard, twice, then squints. “Why ain’t you bashing my face in, huh?” Bucky asks, still trying to wrap his head around what he’s seeing.   
“That’s the last thing I wanna do ya damn jerk.” Steve finally releases Bucky from his death grip. Bucky stumbles backwards. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Bucky might vomit. He’s against the wall of his and Steve’s apartment, and Steve _knows_ , he finally knows what Bucky has been hiding for over a decade. Steve is right, he’s not gonna crack Bucky’s skull, he ain’t like that. He won’t hurt Bucky, not ever, but he will look at him with pity and that’s even worse. Bucky laughs again.   
“So what’s it gonna be Stevie? Should I leave or you? I think if we just keep it quiet we can pretend it never happened. I’d prefer not to be thrown in jail if you don’t mind.”  
“Buck.”  
“Nah, nah, don’t you start with me. It’s humiliating as it is. Please just tell me how you’d like it because I want this done with as soon as possible. I thought I could keep it together. I’m sorry I couldn’t.”  
Steve moves forward, towards Bucky, and he touches him, but this time doesn’t put him in a death grip. He only places his palm to Bucky’s cheek. Bucky hates himself but leans into the warmth. He’s so tired.   
Steve leans in and puts his lips to the side of Bucky’s face. Bucky shivers, shuts his eyes, feels like he’s fucking drunk.   
“I told you I wanted you to shut up,” Steve says. He presses his mouth to Bucky’s left brow, then moves down to Bucky’s jawline. “You wouldn’t stop talking nonsense.”   
Bucky swallows, the words he wants are thick in his throat but he can’t seem to speak. He opens his eyes and Steve’s face is fucking heartbreaking.   
“Stevie?” Bucky finally manages.   
“Yeah,” Steve says.   
Bucky leans forward and presses his lips to Steve’s. Steve opens for him, moves against him, and Bucky might start crying like a baby again. Steve’s got him pinned against a wall and he’s got a hand in Bucky’s hair. Bucky must be dreaming, he must be so fuckin’ full of it. Bucky puts his hand against Steve’s face, letting himself lean into the fantasy unfolding before him.   
Steve pulls away, just a little, and presses his forehead to Bucky’s.   
“Are you gonna push me away again?” Steve asks. Bucky puts his hand against Steve’s chest. Steve’s heart is pounding drunkenly like it used to when he would get real sick.   
“No,” Bucky says, but it comes out more like a whine and fuck, has he ever sounded so pathetic?   
Steve leans in again. He kisses Bucky’s mouth, then moves down his neck. Bucky pushes himself off the wall and fists the fabric of Steve’s shirt, trying to pull him closer, somehow, like Steve doesn’t already have his tongue down Bucky’s throat.   
“Is this for real?” Bucky asks, breathless and shaky.   
“Yeah,” Steve huffs out a laugh. “Yeah it’s real, unless you want me to stop.”  
“Don’t you dare, not ever.”  
They fall into the bedroom, and Bucky is tripping over his own feet. He’s on top of Steve, straddling him like he has only in his sickest fantasies, but Bucky’s probably dying because he’s getting everything he’s ever wanted, and his heart is pounding like it’s gonna jump out of his chest.   
“Baby?” Bucky asks. He’s asking everything with that word, but he can hardly see straight.   
“I’m your baby, Buck,” Steve says, and he’s _smiling_. He’s actually smiling. He runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair and smiles at him from his pillow. “I’m yours.”  
Bucky groans and hides his face in Steve’s neck.   
  
Then, there isn’t much talking, after that.

 

In the morning, Bucky turns over and sees his Stevie, curled up on his side, all hard muscle, but his face is exactly the same as it was when they were sixteen, huddled on Sarah Roger’s floor, trying to distract each other from the cold.   
Steve’s mouth is a soft pink line, lips slightly fallen open in sleep. Bucky thinks back to that same mouth cursing, then whimpering Bucky’s name just a few hours before. He’s just had Steve, but Bucky wants him again. He wants and wants and wants.   
It’s like Steve knows he’s being watched. He opens his eyes, pure ocean blue, and smiles. Just like last night. Bucky should feel embarrassed, caught out with all his staring. But he can’t find it in him to feel bad about it.   
“Hey sweetheart,” Bucky says. Steve smiles wider. He throws an arm over Bucky’s waist and kisses his forehead.   
“I always wanted you to call me that,” Steve admits.

 

**February 10, 1946**  
  
Steve is gone for a few days, and that might be a mercy. They haven’t touched since that first time. Bucky feels so unsure about the whole thing, thinks he might be ruining Steve’s life. He thinks about how he was Steve’s first, and a shiver runs down his spine. He doesn’t know what it all means. He loves the idea of being Steve’s one and only, loves it all the way down to his toes. Still feels selfish though, at the end of the day. Steve should have anyone he wants, he should have all the girls that are falling over themselves to be with Captain Asshole. Of course, Bucky knows that ain’t Steve.  
Steve had kissed Bucky a total of sixty eight times in the last six days, and Bucky hates how he’s keeping track. They’ve kissed and kissed. They’ve shared a bed since then. Still, they’ve pulled away before it can get too heated each time. Not for lack of wanting, Bucky knows. It’s just all jumbled up, they’re testing the waters, and Steve is too sweet to push. Steve had kissed Bucky slow and sweet when he left. Bucky’s been thinking about it for hours. He lights a cigarette. He thinks about Steve saying his name that night. He tries to parse out what he should do and can’t.

 

**July 14, 1944**  
  
Bucky watches Steve watch Carter. He watches her with dark eyes, his mouth ajar. She’s not wearing any makeup today. She looks tired. It doesn’t matter, because she’s barking orders. She’s lovely like this too.   
Steve watches Carter. Bucky watches Steve watch Carter. He tells himself it doesn’t matter that Steve finally fell in love. It was gonna happen at some point anyway.

 

**June 12, 1945**  
  
The dreams come for him. He dreams he’s on a hard, cold table. He dreams he’s being injected with poison. He breathes gas, someone puts a bite in his mouth to make him quiet. It hurts but Steve is there, his Steve, the small one. That Steve sticks him with a needle too, and Bucky wakes with his face wet.   
When he wakes he is cold because the table had been cold—freezing like ice on his skin.   
Steve’s face, his real Steve, is above him. He presses his hand to Bucky’s face. It’s so wonderfully warm.   
“You’re okay Buck.”  
“…James Buchanan Barnes, number 32557…”  
“No, Buck, you’re here,” Steve says, and he sounds so frightened. Bucky is still waking up. Oh yeah, he said that when Steve rescued him. Shit. Bucky pushes his face into Steve’s warm and smooth palm. “I’m here.”   
“You’re shaking,” says Steve.   
Bucky holds up his hands and sure enough, they’re trembling something fierce. He tries to shove them back under the covers but Steve grabs them in his own. He holds Bucky’s hands steady. “I’ve got you,” Steve says, and kisses the knuckles on each of Bucky’s hands. Bucky’s fingers twitch against Steve’s mouth, but it’s easy to pretend that’s it’s just because he’s shaking. “You’re here. You’re in Brooklyn. It’s all over. You can pretend it’s 1933 if you close your eyes,” Steve says. He presses another kiss to the inside of Bucky’s wrist. Bucky memorizes the image as best he can and tries not to cry at the thought. If it were anyone else Bucky would be suspicious but Steve just looks so earnest and concerned. He’s not got any ulterior motive.   
“No I can’t,” Bucky whispers. “You weigh about one fifty too much.”   
Steve laughs, his lips brushing Bucky’s palms. Bucky’s hands are steadying. “But close your eyes. Listen to the city.”  
Bucky obliges him. He shuts his eyes and leans his forehead against Steve’s shoulder. A cab driver lays down on his horn. Someone shouts, angry and drunk.   
“It sounds like Brooklyn.”  
“Exactly.”  
Steve pushes a hand through Bucky’s hair.  
“Your hands are the same,” Bucky whispers. “Your hands are exactly the same.”   
“It’s just me. It’s always just been me.”  
Bucky wants to cry. He knows. God he knows it’s Steve. It’s always been Steve. That stupid fucking idiot putting his fists up after his face is pulpy and red, when he should have stopped ten licks ago. Steve never sits down. He always gets back up. It’s infuriating. It’s him, even with his shoulder being too big. “You still smell like the soap your Ma used to buy.”   
Steve snickers. “It’s just ‘cause I don’t smell like blood and dirt anymore.”   
Bucky laughs too. “That must be it.”  
Steve pulls Bucky close. Bucky is still shaking. He’s cold all over. And Steve. Steve is burning up, he’s so warm. He’s like a furnace. Bucky allows himself to pull Steve closer. He wraps his arms around Steve, and Steve reciprocates. Bucky breathes into Steve’s neck, getting warmer and warmer by the second. “God, you’re so warm.” Steve muffles a laugh into Bucky’s hair.   
“You’re okay. You’re gonna be just fine.”   
Bucky tries to gather all the warmth he can. After all, this can only last so long.

 

He wakes a few more times like this. Each time Steve is there. He holds Bucky in his arms as Bucky wipes tears away from his eyes or shakes so badly he might scream or turn to dust. Each time Bucky allows Steve to rub his back, kiss his hands to steady them, and whisper reassurances to make Bucky feel like he’s human again. He memorizes each touch. He lets it happen and hates himself for it each time. The way he loves Steve is turning greedy, and he feels just sick about it.

 

 

**February 26, 1946**

The second time Bucky can hardly control himself. It happens fast and before he knows it, Bucky has his little Stevie pinned against the wall, with _alla_ Steve in his mouth, Bucky is on his knees like he’s in fuckin’ church, and he’s going to hell for this to be sure, but there’s also nothing better than this—on heaven or earth—than hearing Steve sound like that, all whining and desperate with his hands in Bucky’s hair.   
Bucky puts the fingers of his right hand through Steve’s belt loops, puts his left palm against Steve’s thigh, and pulls _closer_.   
Steve makes a high pitched noise and Bucky dares to open his eyes and looks up. The look on Steve’s face, it’s like he’s looking at somethin’ holy, but what he’s actually looking at is Bucky.   
Bucky pushes his face further towards Steve’s stomach. He groans at the heaviness, the taste, he’s only been able to imagine and imagination just ain’t nothin’ compared to the real thing. Bucky could cry when Steve’s breath hitches and he says Bucky’s name. Steve stutters, and Bucky can taste all of him on his tongue. Bucky takes all of it, then wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. He laughs a little; he’s not done that with a man before.   
Bucky gets up off his knees and kisses Steve. He can’t stop smiling, it feels almost stupid. Steve kisses back, then down, then farther and farther, until Bucky realizes what he’s doing.   
“You ain’t gotta do that Stevie,” Bucky says. He feels much more nervous about the idea of Steve reciprocating than anything else and oh God, Bucky could do it all over again.   
“I know,” Steve says sternly, like he really means it, and so deliberately drops to his knees.

 

 

**October 5, 1933**

Steve is doodling a resemblance of Bucky again. Bucky laughs, posing and hamming it up completely. Steve laughs.  
“Stop! You’re ruining my stoic portrait!”   
“Oh, sure, like you ain’t enjoying this,” Bucky replies, and puts on his best movie star smile. It wins a laugh out of Steve, so it’s worth it.   
“Sit still then! If you’re gonna make me go through all the trouble.”   
So Bucky does. He leans his elbows onto the rails of the fire escape and looks at his scraped up forearm from the day before, when a boy who had had twenty pounds on him at least had rammed Bucky’s face into the dirt because he had gone running into a fight after Stevie. Bucky watches Steve concentrate on the paper out of the corner of his eye. Maybe loving someone from afar isn’t all bad.

 

 

**January 1, 1938**

Bucky knows he’s out of his mind drunk. He’s fairly sure, from the little that he can tell, that he’s not going to remember anything when he wakes up in the morning. Steve is next to him, tugging at his sleeve. Steve is drunk too. This might be the best New Year’s Bucky has ever had because it’s just him and Stevie, drunk as skunks in their apartment. Becca had asked him to come over, but Bucky had lied. Bucky hadn’t had no dame to take out. Bucky had gotten piss whiskey drunk with Stevie. With his little Stevie. Steve’s got his forehead on Bucky’s shoulder. He’s laughing something fierce. He’s laughing like fire, like he’s gonna laugh so hard he’ll shoot the whiskey right out of his nose.   
“Steve, Steven, knock it off I’m gonna crack a rib,” Bucky says, holding his sides.   
“I’ve never been this drunk,” Steve announces, holding the bottle up. “This is the most drunk I’ve ever been.”  
“Well you should probably make good use of it. Go on, gimme a dance or somethin’,” Bucky says. Steve obliges. He salutes Bucky and then goes to the radio. He turns it up and then does a little dance, one that he probably memorized for the hell of for the purpose of doing double dates with Bucky, but still butchers because Steve is drunk and can’t dance for shit in the first place.   
Steve finishes the dance with jazz hands and Bucky is laughing, deep from his gut, he loves Steve so much he’s probably gonna die.   
“I’m glad you’re laughing so much!” Steve says, staggering down next to Bucky. They’re just leaning against the wall, not even on the sofa, they’re so damn drunk. Despite it, Bucky takes another swig from the nearly empty bottle. Did they really drink all that themselves?  
“An outstanding performance Stevie!”  
“Yeah it was, ya jerk!” Steve says, pulling the bottle away from Bucky and taking a long drink himself. Steve’s lips wrap around the bottle, and Christ he’s so cute. So damn cute. Bucky pushes the thought back, rips the bottle away, and takes his own long drink. He’s so wildly drunk. He shouldn’t have more.   
“We’re gonna be fuckin’ dead tomorrow, aren’t we?” Steve asks. Bucky almost chokes on the whiskey. He almost snorts the liquor out of his nose. Steve never ever swears. It’s amazing, hearing him say such a thing.   
“Yes we are Stevie. In fact, we should probably plan on making a trip to the diner tomorrow cause there ain’t no way we’re gonna make it without it.”  
“We can’t afford the diner,” Steve says, but he’s taking another drink from the bottle. It’ll be gone soon.   
“Sure we can,” Bucky says, and winks. Steve is already shaking his head, but Bucky is nodding and laughing again. “I’ve been saving.”  
“Oh, dammit Buck, you can’t do that!”  
“I’ll do whatever I like with my money, include spend it on you and me!” Bucky announces. Bucky holds his head. “Steve, am I as drunk as I think?”  
“Yeah, we both are. We’re both absolutely pissed.”  
Bucky laughs. “We gotta sleep it off.”  
They crawl into bed together. It’s cold after all. Bucky shouldn’t even have let Steve drink so much. But it’s cold as all hell and so Bucky wraps an arm around Stevie. He holds him close, and rings in the New Year. Bucky is twenty years old, in love something fierce, and he’s gonna give himself away so easy.

 

 

**December 9, 1945**  
  
It’s probably the worst idea Bucky has ever had, but he gets drunk and convinces himself he can sleep with a girl because he just wants to feel fuckin’ normal for five minutes. He drinks at a bar not far from his and Steve’s apartment, and flirts with a lot of dames. It’s bad but he’s got a reputation now. He’s a famous Sergeant. Not like he wanted to be.  
He picks out this petite little blonde thing (go fuckin’ figure) and they go back to her place because her roommate is gone visiting family.   
Bucky is drunk and she’s all warm and soft in his hands, and her bed is well padded, and she has little pink flowers on her quilt. She’s pretty—real pretty, and when she kisses up his neck Bucky lets a moan escape from his mouth. He almost says Steve’s name—gets it halfway out, but he realizes, goes cold, and turns it into “Stop.” She pulls away. He still can’t seem to make himself hard anyway. “Sorry doll, I think this shmuck had too much to drink.”  
“Oh,” she says gently, looking embarrassed, and sure, he’s sick to his stomach but he’s still a gentleman. He remembers her name is Waltra. She’d said she had a brother living in California. He pulls her skirt up and runs his hand down her thigh.   
“You shouldn’t have to suffer for that though,” Bucky says.   
She laughs and then gasps when Bucky touches her. He’s still a God damn gentleman.

 

**April 11, 1946**

 

It’s when Bucky finds himself with a knife against a Russian’s knuckles that he finally comes to. The man is screaming, screaming, screaming. They get what they need and Bucky cuts three of his fingers off anyway.   
_I just need to put a bullet in something or to feel your hands on my bare skin; either one would do. You stupid fucking punk I want to hold you down and shut that smart mouth up for once unless it’s just to say my name_

And

Fuck, he’s thinking of Steve, and his mouth red like cherries and eyes like a cloudless day.

He cuts through bone, listens to the screams, and walks out of the room.

 

**April 13, 1946**

 

Bucky walks through the door of his and Steve’s apartment and sees Steve sitting on the sofa like he’s been waiting for Bucky to get back. He knows that isn’t the case. He knows Steve has a job too, that he left the room numerous times. He watches Steve. He’s got his sketchpad and pencil in his hands. His hair is getting long. He’s looking at Bucky with a quizzical expression. He’s so fucking beautiful.   
Bucky gently removes the sketchpad and charcoal out of Steve’s hands. He throws them on the ground and then pushes Steve back so he’s leaning all the way against the back of the sofa. Bucky straddles him then, and buries his face in Stevie’s neck. Steve wraps his arms around Buck’s waist and Bucky thrusts down against Steve. Steve groans and Bucky loses his mind. He takes Steve’s chin in his hand and pulls Steve up to his lips, hard. He’s grinding down on Stevie, making all sorts of embarrassing noises. Steve’s got his fists curled into the fabric against Bucky’s back. He’s whimpering into Bucky’s mouth, then Bucky’s chest. _God dammit, Honey,_ Bucky thinks, for the hundredth time in his life.   
Bucky reaches down between the two of them. He unzips Steve, then himself, then dies a little. They aren’t even really kissing anymore, just breathing heavy and gasping into each other’s mouths. Bucky might die in this moment, might just really end it all but then he’s coming, far too soon. Steve isn’t long after, just a few seconds. Bucky begins laughing, hysterically, and Steve follows suit. They’re like a couple of teenagers necking in the back seat of a car.   
“Christ, you’ll be the death of me,” Bucky says, still trying to catch his breath.   
“How lucky did I get?”   
Bucky kisses Steve once more, slow and so fucking languid. Like they’ve been doing it for years.

 

**October 8, 1946**

They end up on the living room floor, too exhausted for anything else. Bucky traces Steve’s lifeline on his palm.  
“I can’t believe we both survived,” Bucky says. He kisses Steve’s palm. Bucky doesn’t have to specify. Steve nods, knowing exactly what he means.   
“We either both had to die or we both had to live. We couldn’t have been apart,” Steve says.   
Bucky agrees. If Steve had died and left Bucky alone, he probably would have had to eat his gun.

 

 

**November 7, 1946**

“It should have been Carter,” Bucky finds himself saying. The hand that holds his cigarette shakes as he says it. Sometimes it’s nice to not have to worry about Steve’s asthma anymore.   
“You wanna run that by me again?” Steve asks. But he heard it. Bucky can tell from the line between his brow and the turned down mouth. Steve is fucking pissed. Still, Bucky continues. “It shouldn’t have been me. It should have been Carter. Everything woulda been so much easier.” Bucky puts the cigarette to his lips. “You could have been married, had a couple a kids. Wouldn’t worry about your old war pal.”  
“War pal?” Steve repeats, like he can’t believe it. Bucky knows he’s wrong. He knows he isn’t a war buddy. That would imply that they didn’t know each other before it. As though they hadn’t known each other since they were fucking born. So yeah, Bucky knows he’s wrong. He’s just angry at Steve for being so fucking stubborn.   
“I’m just saying. It would have been so much easier. It’s really my fault we’re in this mess. I couldn’t keep my damn mouth shut. If it wasn’t Carter it would have been some other nice girl. Come on. You know it. If I could have kept my mouth shut you coulda had a normal life.” Bucky’s hands shake. He takes a long drag off his cigarette.   
Steve sits across from him, expression blank. He steeples his hands together against his lips and eyes Bucky up like he’s looking at a stranger.  
“How the fuck can you say that to me?” Steve asks, his voice only at a whisper. That means he wants to yell but is holding back. Bucky wishes he would yell. “How can you say that like I haven’t loved you since I was a kid?”   
“Jesus Steve, don’t be so thick. You’re the one who proposed to her! Don’t act like it’s something you didn’t want!” Bucky is shouting now. He’s no good at holding back.   
“I didn’t think I had a choice. I didn’t know. And yes, I did love Peggy. I loved her a lot. It doesn’t mean I stopped loving you. I didn’t think I had a _choice_.” The voice is stern but still even.  
“Don’t you ever want that though? A fuckin’ normal life where we don’t have to lose our shit if we accidentally brush shoulders in public? And it’s funny, we didn’t use do care who saw. Now we’re so paranoid. I get up to check that the door is locked three times a night. Fuck.”   
“To answer your question. No I do not. Because it would be a lie. The only thing I want is whatever you’re willing to give.” Steve leans forward and puts his hand in Bucky’s hair. His fingers make a fist at the back of Bucky’s head. He pulls tight, and it’s nice.   
“You know you got all of me pal.”  
“And you got all of me.” Steve pulls tighter, and it hurts a little, but Bucky smiles. “If you ever imply I got a choice in loving you again, I’ll lose my mind, Buck. Cause loving you is the easiest choice I ever made. It was also never a choice at all. It’s fact. I don’t know what I gotta do to prove it.”  
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that,” Bucky says, voice rough. He puts a hand around Steve’s wrist. He suddenly misses the feel of Steve’s mouth on his. He wants and wants. But Steve pulls his hand away, out of Bucky’s hair, and then away from Bucky entirely.   
“I gotta go out,” Steve says. He grabs his jacket as he leaves. Bucky feels raw and red. The door closes. He pours himself another drink. He lights a cigarette. He tries not to think about it.   
  
Bucky gets drunk while Steve is gone. He doesn’t know what  he’s supposed to do, or not do, anymore. He wants to apologize. He wants to convince Steve to just leave him. When Steve comes through the door hours later, Bucky smiles at him, gentle and watery.   
“Hey.”  
“Hey.”  
“I’m sorry,” Bucky says. “I just get scared.”  
“Me too Buck.”  
“I had an idea while you were gone.”  
“What’s that?”  
“Do you wanna put all the pillows on the floor like when we were kids? We can spread out with blankets, I can hold you like you’re shivering in November, I’ll hold you real tight.”  
Steve smiles. He sits down next to Bucky.  
“Please.”  
They take the pillows and blankets from their beds and make a small bed on the floor. It won’t be more comfortable but there is something distinctly intimate about it. It really is like they’re kids again. Bucky wraps himself around Steve’s body and sighs. Steve is warm and gentle. He feels the same and for the most part smells the same. Even after the serum. Even after the war. Even after all this time.

 

 

**July 19, 1945**

“So if I say…if I say…” Steve is pacing. He can’t keep his words straight. He’s making Bucky anxious just _watching_ him.   
“Just _ask_ you stupid fucking asshole. Say, ‘Pegs, will ya marry me? I know I ain’t much to look at and I’m dumber than rocks but--”  
“Oh, would you can it. If you won’t be helpful--”  
“Alright alright punk, calm down. Deep breaths. Can you take deep breaths for me Steve?  Here’s what you say. You say, ‘Margaret Carter, I would quite literally be dead without you. You’re the best person I ever met, because Rogers let’s be serious, she could take on most men and win, and you say, will you make me the happiest man in the world?’ Then you get down on your dumb, giant knee,” Bucky says. “That’s it! Keep it simple!”   
“Okay, okay,” Steve says. He’s still pacing. Bucky is gonna throw himself or Steve out the window, one of the two. “I’m doing right by her, right?”  
“Of course,” says Bucky. “I’ve seen the way you two look at each other. Of course it’s what’s right.”   
  
Steve leaves. Bucky lights a cigarette, and pours himself a glass of whiskey, which he swallows in one gulp.   
He doesn’t keep it down long.

 

 

Steve is home in just a little over an hour later. Bucky had been playing solitaire, smoking, and drinking, feeling sorry for himself. After all, it’s not every day the love of your life gets engaged to someone else.   
Bucky is already drunk, even after barfing up his first drink, when Steve walks through the door.  
  
“What, didjya leave the ring in your other jacket ya useless shmuck?” Bucky asks, ashing his cigarette.   
“Nope,” Steve says, and places the little black box on the kitchen counter. Bucky picks up his glass of whiskey with a shaky hand, too afraid to hope. He feels an immediate sick guilt wash over him that he would feel hopeful at all.   
“Did she stand ya up? Get called away or somethin’?” Bucky asks as a last resort. His heart is pounding.  
“What’s with the drink?” Steve asks.  
“I was waiting for you to call, tell me the news all official,” Bucky lies, like he hasn’t been trying to settle his shaking, lovesick hands all night. “Why, what’s the matter pal?”   
“She said no,” Steve says, and he’s smiling at Bucky, but Bucky can see he’s disappointed. Steve begins to undo his tie. “She explained it to me real nice. She said she loves me, but she can’t marry me. Too many conflicting interests. She even flattered me by crying a bit.” Steve laughs. “She practically begged me to get up off the grass. It shouldn’t be so funny, but it is.”   
“What kind of shit is that?” Bucky can’t really understand how anyone _wouldn’t_ wanna marry Steve, should they be so lucky for him to ask.   
“It’s the truth, Buck,” Steve says, shrugging. Bucky looks, really looks at Steve’s face and sees plain as day: his baby is so fucking sad.   
“Aw, come here you big lug.”  
Bucky pulls Steve in, wraps his arms around Steve’s shoulders, his too big shoulders, and just holds. He’d do anything to make that sadness go away. Even watch Steve marry someone else.   
Steve doesn’t cry. In fact, he only sighs and sags into Bucky’s arms like he’s just bone tired.   
“I shoulda known,” Steve says.   
“Well she is too good for you, that’s for sure,” Bucky says. He squeezes the back of Steve’s neck and then pulls away. “We still got that jet fuel shit from Stark?” Howard, asshole that he is, always made sure that Captain America had the finest whiskey available in his home. Bucky was grateful for that. Steve hardly drank, but when he did it was with purpose.   
Bucky starts rummaging around in the cupboards. He finds the bottle hidden under the sink. He pours them each a glass. Steve with his super soldier juice and Bucky just with the regular human stuff. They both take a sip and Steve grimaces while going pink in his cheeks.   
“Shit, Buck, this shit is honestly poison.”  
“Stevie, that shit would make me go blind. But you need it now, you need it!”  
Bucky lights a second cigarette with the one already lit in his mouth. He hands it to Steve. Steve tries to wave it away but it’s so half-hearted that Bucky laughs.   
“I don’t even drink, let alone smoke Buck,” Steve says, but he takes the cigarette, and Bucky feels himself go red at watching Steve do what he never ever does. Steve takes a drag from the cigarette and then leans back and closes his eyes.   
“I always forget how good cigarettes can be,” Steve says, eyes still closed. “I couldn’t smoke them for so long and, Jesus.” Steve trails off. Bucky nearly bites off his tongue.

  
They have a drink or two, and then all the sudden Steve is all giggly and red, sitting across from Bucky. Bucky is trying to cheer him up, though God knows if it’s working.   
“Well, sorry pal, but I can see why she said no. I mean, the serum did its work but Christ, look at that beak baby,” Bucky says, then laughs. “It’s been broken so many times it’s hardly a nose at all. And I’m pretty sure your eyes are too close together,” Bucky says. He takes another drink. Steve cackles, holding his drink in his hand and then stealing Bucky’s cigarette out of his hand. Steve doesn’t even smoke. Not really. Only when he’s drunk as a skunk. That’s how Bucky knows.   
“Yeah, well, your chin is just stupid. And your forehead is too big,” Steve says, pointing at the center of Bucky’s skull. Bucky can’t help himself, he laughs so hard he nearly falls off the sofa.   
“My chin is _stupid_?” Bucky demands. “I’m damn handsome you liar. You dirty, dirty liar.”  
Steve leans his whole body against the body of the sofa. He’s drunk, real and truly drunk. Bucky hasn’t seen that since 1940.   
“Yeah, it’s stupid. It should have been in the pictures really. You’re…you’re a sniper but you could have been in the pictures, Buck,” Steve says, and it’s so terribly earnest Bucky hardly knows what to do.  
“I ain’t no actor. I’m just a real good shooter. Got a true shot,” Bucky says, and laughs.   
He knows Steve won’t remember this in the morning. Steve doesn’t drink. Steve doesn’t smoke either, but he’s got half a cigarette dangling from his lips. One that Bucky was nursing just a minute ago. It makes Bucky sick with want, that they’d share something like that.

 

 

**May 5, 1938**  
  
Steve’s face is one big bruise. Bucky had been at work, and he came home to find Stevie with ice on his face, one of his asthma cigarettes hanging out of his mouth. Bucky’s mouth had hung open at the sight.   
“Close the door Buck, I’m fine.” His voice is quiet and stern, and the fact that he has to be the one who’s being stern with Bucky is truly unbelievable.   
Bucky closes the door. He’s so mad he could spit. “What the fuck happened?”   
“It was pretty fucked up actually, and I’d do it again,” Steve says, and Bucky raises his eyebrows to his hairline. Steve never swears. Bucky sits down on the sofa next to Steve.   
“What was it?”  
“Two of ‘em, pawing at some girl outside the theater. It wasn’t right. She was so quiet, and they wouldn’t leave her be.”   
“Awe, Steve. Is she okay?”  
“Yeah. I walked her home. I just hope I didn’t get any blood on her dress.”   
“Did you get any good licks in?”  
“They ended up goin’ away didn’t they?”  
“Yeah after they bashed your brains in.”  
“Nah, the brains are still intact.”  
“Stevie, this is horrible. How much pain are you in?”   
“It’s fine.”  
“No, it ain’t. Take the ice off your face, lemme see.”  
Steve puts his arm down and Bucky swallows the gasp that tries to escape his throat. Steve’s face is all blue and purple. His lips are red. The worst thing is, even with a fucked to shit face Steve is stunning. He’s stubborn in his jaw. His mouth is full and pouty and in a deplorable way. His eyes are now shadowed in bruises, and he even makes that look good. _God help me,_ Bucky thinks.   
“You really took a beating this time. Stevie, do you wanna go to the hospital? I don’t know if ice and my shitty patch up skills are gonna cut it. I haven’t even seen the rest of you.”  
“Buck, we ain’t goin’ to the hospital.”   
  
That night, Bucky wakes up and sees the back of Steve’s head, the outline of him holding his sides. He’s in pain. He lets out a whimper. Steve never ever whimpers, he never makes noise from pain.   
“Stevie?” Bucky whispers.   
“M’fine Buck,” Steve throws back, but he pulls his arm tighter around his side.   
“No, you ain’t. Come here.” Bucky puts a hand on the back of Steve’s neck. He curls up even smaller. “Stevie, you got a broken rib?”  
“No, I’ve had broken ribs before. This just hurts. It’s all bruised.” Steve’s voice sounds all wobbly and Bucky realizes, in the dark, that Steve is crying from the pain.   
Nothing else matters. Bucky wraps his body around Steve’s. He wraps his arm around Steve, his forearm shoving itself hard against Steve’s too prominent clavicle. Bucky pushes his nose into Steve’s hair. “You’re fine buddy,” Bucky says, mouth against the shell of Steve’s stupid big ear. “You’re gonna be just fine. I gotcha.”   
He knows Steve is beyond humiliated. But of course it’s only now, hours after a fight, that Steve has allowed himself to break.   
“You don’t gotta do this,” Steve whispers.   
“Shut up you stupid punk. I don’t gotta do this and you don’t gotta get your face busted beyond recognition.”   
Steve hisses in pain. When he does, he grabs Bucky’s wrist. This is so selfish of Bucky, the way he’s curled around Steve. He feels like a monster. Still, he doesn’t move away. Steve’s hair smells like mint and cigarette smoke. He smells like his charcoal pencils too. And sweat.   
After another hour, Steve falls asleep. His breathing evens out. He’s still got his hand on Bucky’s wrist.   
“Love you,” Bucky whispers against Steve’s ear. Steve doesn’t react. He sleeps on. Bucky says it three more times with his mouth full of Steve’s hair. This is as close as he’s ever gonna get after all.   


 

**April 21, 1946**

They’ve never known what they were doing, not really. There had been a lot of rutting, and gasping, and it had been easy enough because Bucky has wanted Steve for most of his life. The thing is, they haven’t done everything together, until right now.   
Bucky bites down on Steve’s shoulder. He’s straddling him, and Steve is grinding up against him. Bucky pulls himself away from Steve long enough to look at him, really look. The flush in Steve’s cheeks is so pink, and his eyes are all wild blue. Today he’s wearing a beige sweater that’s soft in Bucky’s fingers but is ugly as all hell.   
Bucky pushes Steve’s hair out of his eyes. He kisses Steve’s brow. He’s so fucking pretty. So pretty. Bucky sneaks his hand under Steve’s sweater. He feels the smooth, perfect skin underneath. Steve is so warm, skin burning. Bucky bites down too hard on his bottom lip.   
“I love you,” Steve says. He’s looking at Bucky all soft and hungry.   
“Oh,” Bucky breathes. He leans down and kisses Steve hard. He bites down hard on Steve’s upper lip. Steve grunts under Bucky. It’s a terribly delicious sound. Bucky fists his hands in Steve’s shirt and pulls up. “Off,” he demands. Steve smiles and obliges.   
Steve is so damn beautiful. He always has been. It’s still a little strange to see Steve so big. Bucky spent so much of his life admiring that little kid from Brooklyn, so small and sweet and strong it made Bucky’s jaw ache.   
Bucky undoes the buttons of his shirt. Steve pushes Bucky’s shirt all the way off of his shoulders.  
Bucky reaches down and unzips Steve’s fly. Steve whimpers, the blush creeping down his neck and all across his chest. Bucky thinks he may die. Before, it had been too quick or too dark and Bucky hadn’t been able to _see_. Now he may collapse with the effort of seeing all of Steve.   
“Up,” Bucky whispers, and Steve lifts himself off the bed, just enough so that Bucky can pull his jeans off.   
All of a sudden, Steve is fully naked in front of Bucky, blush blotchy all over him, eyes dark and all on Bucky. It’s everything Bucky’s been dreaming about since he was fifteen years old. He thinks he moans, though he can’t be sure.   
“Come on, don’t make me beg here,” Steve says, and tugs at Bucky’s belt loops. Bucky obliges, moves off of Steve for the briefest of moments to remove his clothes. He feels the heat rush to his face as well; he feels a gentle choke of fear as he watches Steve look him up and down. When Steve puts a hand on Bucky’s naked hip Bucky sighs with relief. “God I love you,” Steve says, running a thumb down Bucky’s thigh. Bucky gasps, feeling undone.  
“Baby,” Bucky murmurs. Bucky straddles him again. Bucky spits into his palm and then touches Steve. Steve shudders.   
Bucky takes the time to ready himself, and at the sight Steve shudders, hands shaky against Bucky’s ribs, and doesn’t break eye contact with Bucky, gasps when Bucky gasps, and it’s so terribly flattering and so terribly perfect that Bucky thinks he’s going to weep. He ends up on top of Steve, and then Steve moans loud and high when Bucky shifts down onto Steve. Bucky groans and falls over Steve’s chest.   
Bucky rides Steve and feels drunk with it. None of it seems real. When Steve throws his head back in pleasure, so does Bucky. It’s unbearable, the way Bucky loves Steve.   
Bucky rolls off Steve, onto his back and tries to catch his breath. He lies next to Steve, feeling brilliant and fire-like when Bucky realizes that Steve had said ‘I love you,’ twice. Bucky’s heart pounds. He rolls over and looks at Steve’s face.  
Steve doesn’t look upset about it. He looks unfazed in fact. Bucky kisses him, delighted that he can do so.   
Bucky leans down to whisper the words in Steve’s ear. “I love you I love you I love you,” Bucky says, all quiet and wicked, just like he had said years ago. He’s nineteen again and has the world in his hands now. He feels high and perfect. Steve laughs again, then puts his hands through Bucky’s hair.  

“Stevie,” Bucky whispers.  
“Yeah?”  
“What the fuck are we gonna do?”

 

**April 6, 1947**  
  
“I have a confession,” Steve says. He’s naked with a smirk on his face. His chest is still flush. He’s got a bruise on his pectoral where Bucky sucked a mark.   
“What is it?” Bucky asks, curious. Steve is being both playful and coy at the same time, and God, Bucky doesn’t even know what to do with that.   
“Do you remember Edna Baker?”   
Bucky does. She lived three blocks down. She had black hair and a thin, sharp nose. She wore pink lipstick, and once behind a dance hall Bucky had made her moan softly into his neck. She had been cute, voice all gone and legs all shaky. She had been a good kisser. Sometimes you just need to feel close to someone else.   
“Yeah, she wore those ribbons in her hair. What about her?”  
Steve is blushing fully now. Bucky cocks an eyebrow.   
“I saw you with her, the night you took me dancing with her and her friend Millie. Millie ditched me real quick which was to be expected. I went to find you, because I figured you were out having a smoke, and I was ready to head home. So I went out back, figured I’d just deal with the smoke because I was tired as it was. Anyway, I saw you with her.”  
It takes Bucky a moment to understand. When he does he laughs a little.   
“Oh,” Bucky says. “Guess ya caught me, huh?”   
“I stayed,” Steve whispers. “I…I didn’t leave. I should have left. I tried to tell myself I was so surprised and all that I was frozen there but. That’s not what happened.”  
“Oh,” Bucky repeats, laughs harder, and slaps Steve’s bare shoulder. “Oh, Rogers, you dirty dog! Did you get a good view?”   
“I was so horrified that I did it but I saw you, and I almost called out to you and Jesus, how bad would that have been? I stopped myself, and I saw that your hand was between her legs. I just. I don’t know. It was horrible. I told a priest about it after.”   
Bucky is near tears laughing now. He rests his head on Steve’s shoulder while the laughter ripples through him. “A priest! Ah, Christ Stevie!”  
“I’ve never been so jealous and horny in my whole life. I didn’t know if I wanted to be her or you and it was so bad Buck, I’m still plain horrified, that girl didn’t deserve that!”  
“I never ever would have guessed. Not in a million years, not for a million bucks,” Bucky says, his laughter finally dying down. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it too much. Edna will never know, your secret is safe with me.”  
“I still feel bad about it, is what I’m saying,” Steve says. “Now that I’m with you, I actually feel even worse about it.”  
“Why the hell do you feel bad? It’s funny now. And a little flattering.”  
“I just keep thinking, how angry I’d be if someone was looking in on us. I don’t even mean that it could be dangerous. It’s just. It’s ours. It wasn’t mine to look at, you know. I stole that from you and her.”  
Bucky laughs lightly. “I’ll let you in on a secret too pal.” Bucky leans down to put his lips to Steve’s ear. He feels Steve’s eyelashes against his face. “I was thinking of you the entire time,” Bucky whispers. He hears Steve inhale sharply. Bucky pulls back and sees that Steve is blushing rose red all over. It fills Bucky with want. He was inside Steve just a few minutes ago but he’s just so damn pretty. He leans down and licks his way into Steve’s mouth. Steve whimpers, and God damn if that sound isn’t devastating every single time.

 

**May 26, 1946**

Steve’s got his head between Bucky’s legs. Bucky can’t help the sounds he’s making. He doesn’t recognize the sounds as those coming from his own mouth but Steve is running his hands down Bucky’s ribcage, and his mouth is at the inside of Bucky’s left thigh.   
Steve eventually runs his tongue up to Bucky’s cock and licks all the way up. Bucky lets out a whimper, and pulls Steve’s hair tighter. He hears Steve laugh, and God, fuck that asshole.   
Bucky knows, belatedly, that this has to be the last time. They’ve already gone too far and at least now Steve knows Bucky loves him, so he’ll be able to walk away without having to wonder.   
Steve takes all of Bucky in his mouth. He has one hand on Bucky’s hip and God help him, Steve has the other intertwined with Bucky’s fingers. They’re holding hands and Bucky thinks that might be better than getting off.   
The only sounds that Bucky can hear are his own gone, raspy gasps and the soft sounds of Steve licking him up and down. It’s impossible to contain himself. It’s too much. Bucky whines, high and terrible. He grinds his hips up, but Steve holds him down. Bucky gasps, says Steve’s name twice, then loses himself completely.   
Bucky steadies his own breathing as Steve kisses his way back up to Bucky’s mouth. Steve kisses Bucky, and Bucky can taste himself on Steve’s lips. It’s excruciating. Steve smiles into the kiss. Bucky kisses back, rough and raw and Jesus Christ, he feels like he’s on top of the world.   
Eventually, he pulls away. He thinks about how Steve doesn’t know when to quit.   
  
Bucky nearly falls asleep. He feels so saturated with Steve’s love that he nearly forgets himself. He eventually forces himself to roll over on his side and grabs a cigarette off the side table.   
He lights his cigarette and takes a long drag. He feels the effects of the tobacco almost immediately.   
“We have to stop doing this.”  
Bucky watches the smoke curl between his fingers and rise to the ceiling. He licks his lips and stares at the beige, chipped paint at the right corner of the wall.   
“Stop what?” Steve asks, he turns on his side to face Bucky. Bucky puts his cigarette between his teeth and shrugs.   
“We have to stop doing _this_ , Steve. We have to. The longer it goes on for the worse it’s gonna be when it’s over.”  
“When it’s over?”   
“Please, Steve, you know it’ll end sometime, it can’t go on forever.”  
“Why the hell not?”  
“Because, you god damn idiot! How the fuck could it?”   
“Do you not…do you not want it to?”  
Bucky sighs. He rolls his eyes and takes a long drag off his cigarette. “That’s hardly the point.”  
“That’s the entire point, Bucky!”   
Bucky sits up. He smokes down to the filter and then puts the last of his cigarette in the ashtray next to their bed. “Are you being this much of a dumbass on purpose or are you just that fuckin’ stupid?”   
Steve’s got a look about him. He’s had that look before. It’s the look he’s gotten on his face when he had told Bucky he needed to fight in the war. That it didn’t matter that he was ninety five points and barely five foot four. It’s determination, and Steve never backs down from a fight. “You tell me why this has to stop, because I’m really not getting it. That didn’t seem to be the case five minutes ago when I was between your legs,” Steve says. Bucky’s never heard him talk so darkly and so bluntly, and certainly not about sex. Steve used to be a blushing mess anytime anyone mentioned something mildly indecent. Though Bucky supposes that he and Steve have never talked about sex before, not really, and Steve still turns a little red when he says it.   
“Steve, I don’t want to stop. But eventually you will find someone else to really live your life with and I just would prefer…it would be a mercy Stevie, if I didn’t continue because the longer I get to have you the worse it’ll hurt later.”   
“I don’t understand.”  
Bucky moves off the bed. He grabs his jeans off the floor and shoves them on. He doesn’t want to have this conversation naked, he already feels splayed in half. “You’re gonna find someone eventually Steve, if it wasn’t Carter it was gonna be someone else later, why are you being impossibly thick with me?” He buttons his pants and tries to unsuccessfully find his shirt.   
“Why the fuck would I leave you? How the fuck could I leave you? Bucky, what do you think this is to me?”   
“I know you love me Steve, I know, I believe that you do but we can’t keep doing this because in case you forgot, we don’t get to have a future together! I don’t know where the fuck you think we’re living but last I checked we’re well on our way to living behind bars.”  
“What, like that ever stopped us? Like we’ve ever followed rules?”  
Bucky feels wildly angry. He wants to punch the walls. He wants to shake Steve, slap him silly, kiss him till neither of them can breathe. “This isn’t like when I would steal food so I could pay for your meds! This isn’t like when I lied to the shop owner that I had experience in a God damn butcher shop when I had no idea what I was doing! This isn’t like when we were kids! We aren’t shitty little nobodies runnin’ around Brooklyn, we are fuckin’ grown Steve! We are fuckin’ grown, and people know who we are. You’re as famous as the fuckin’ president and my pictures have been in all the papers! What the fuck do you think is happening, huh?!” Bucky’s voice is raw. When he speaks again, his throat hurts. “You stupid fucking asshole.”   
Steve gets up off the bed. He’s so beautiful. Sometimes Bucky forgets he’s so damn big now. Steve stands in front of him, and he’s just a little taller than Bucky, just a little wider. It hits Bucky like a punch to the gut. Steve is godlike and somehow still, standing in front of Bucky completely uncovered. He’s just had his mouth and hands all over Bucky. He chose that. Bucky’s chest heaves with all of it, he can’t catch his breath.   
“I _finally_ have you Bucky. I finally, _finally_ have you. I’m not letting you go so easy. I’ll fight anyone, anything. I know where we live, I know what happens to people like us. I don’t care. Fuck them. Fuck all of them.”  
Steve is strong and brave and endlessly lovely, just like always.   
“I’m trying to be reasonable Steve. I’ve loved you since I was a kid despite the fact that it could be the end of both of us, because there’s no stopping it, I can’t stop loving you, do you not think that given the chance I would have said something sooner? Like I wouldn’ta tried to kiss you when I was fifteen, seventeen, twenty…the day I had to leave for the draft like I wouldn’t have…” Bucky stops. He can feel the tears coming but he doesn’t let them. He breathes through it.   
“Wouldn’t have what Buck?”  
“Like I wouldn’t have gathered you all up…kissed you until my lungs gave out? Like I wouldn’t have gotten on my knees for you?” Bucky’s voice is hardly a whisper.   
Steve is so close now. He runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair.   
“Show me Buck.”  
“Show you?”  
“Show me how you would have kissed me. Show me what you would have done to me.”   
He looks at Steve with narrowed eyes. It’s not surprising, but fuck, it’s enraging, how now Bucky is doing exactly what Steve has asked. Bucky takes Steve’s face in both his hands and slides his mouth along Steve’s. He kisses him as sweet as he knows how, bites Steve’s bottom lip lightly until it earns a whimper from Steve. He’s thought about it a lot actually, too many times to count. He thought about it all the way to fuckin’ boot camp, the way he would have liked to kiss Steve. He had wanted to slide his tongue between Steve’s lips, kiss him softly and real slow, like they had all the time in the world. So he does, just half a decade too late. When he pulls back, Steve is smiling, because of course he is.   
“Is that all you got?”   
Bucky barks out a laugh but shakes his head, angry. “If you were the size you used to be I swear to Christ I would throw you across the room.”  
“No you wouldn’t.”  
“No, I wouldn’t. Fuck you.”   
Steve laughs, then bends forward and kisses Bucky hard. “Show me. Show me what you woulda done before you shipped off.”   
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”  
“So I’ve been told,” Steve says, but it’s breathless and he’s panting into Bucky’s mouth. At least that makes two of them.

 

 

**October 14, 1946**

He feels like Steve’s mistress. He feels hollowed out. He feels like a jammed gun still trying to go off. When he’s not with Steve he convinces himself he’s ruining Steve’s life, and though he tries, he’s too selfish to stop. When he’s with Steve, he’d fight God himself to keep it, this tangible perfection that makes him drunk and anchors him in ways he did not know existed. Without Steve he’s lost, floating, wandering with no sense of direction. He doesn’t know what he ever did to deserve such a person as Steve, who is all that is good in the world. He thinks stupidly that if Steve loves him, there must be something about him worth loving.   
He goes to the kitchen and gets a glass down. He turns on the faucet and fills the glass, lets the cool water run over his fingers. He finishes the water in three gulps. Water runs down his chin, and he gasps over the counter.   
As he does, Steve comes up behind him and wraps his arms around Bucky’s waist. He kisses the back of Bucky’s neck. His teeth graze Bucky’s skin, and Bucky shivers despite the sweat cooling on his back.   
“You’re too warm, Steve,” Bucky says, but is smiling all the same.  
“Sorry,” Steve mumbles into Bucky’s hair.   
“No, you’re not.”  
Steve only laughs in reply and nips a Bucky’s earlobe. It tickles, and Bucky lets out a high pitched laugh. He reaches back and puts his palm on the back of Steve’s head, runs his fingers through his hair.   
“Take me back to bed. I’m so tired I’ll sleep like the dead.”

 

**June 8, 1947**

Bucky is terribly drunk. It’s a party in the middle of Manhattan. All the Howlies are there, because Jim is going to be a daddy. They’ve been doing shots and the more Bucky had protested the harder everyone had tried to get him to drink. Steve had been drinking too, but of course it hadn’t had any real effect on him since it’s not Howard’s rat poison, so he’s just been doing it for solidarity.   
Steve has been watching Bucky closely for the last ten minutes. He’s smiling at him, sweet and secretive, and Bucky knows he’s the only one Steve smiles just like this for.   
“What?” Bucky asks from his barstool. He doesn’t even taste his beer anymore.   
“Nothin.’ You’re just cute when you’re shitfaced.”  
“Shhhhh!” Bucky says dramatically, putting a finger to his lips. “Fuck’s wrong with you?” he says, whispering, putting his hands on Steve’s shoulders.   
Steve leans in close. “No one can hear me Buck. No one’s even paying attention. They’re all drunk just like you.”  
“You look good in your uniform. I wanna go home so I can take it off,” Bucky replies. He thinks he slurs his words a bit but Steve only laughs a little, tilting his head to the side.   
Bucky laughs too. There’s something about saying that in public, even if no one can hear them from their corner of the bar, is wildly satisfying. The room feels too hot. “I gotta piss,” Bucky announces, and when he moves to get up off the barstool, he stumbles, and Steve breaks his fall.   
“Let me help.”   
Steve puts an arm around Bucky’s shoulders. He leads Bucky to the bathroom and when the door shuts behind them Steve presses Bucky against the wall.   
Bucky gasps when his back hits the wall. He laughs and then runs his hands through Steve’s hair.   
Bucky has fooled around in a lot in public places: in alleys right outside of dance halls, in the back of cars, and in the back of movie theaters. He’s never done any of it with a boy though, and it’s Steve no less. Steve kisses Bucky hard and bruising. Bucky laughs into the kiss. He pulls at Steve hair, and then repositions them so that Steve is against the wall instead. Bucky kisses down Steve’s neck and he hears Steve whimper. He smiles against Steve’s neck and continues to suck a mark there, even though he shouldn’t.  
“Oh, fuck,” Steve says, but the way he says it isn’t right. He doesn’t say it all desperate and undone like Bucky expected. Steve says it violent and cold, quick and hard, like he’s startled. He says it like he’s _scared._   
Bucky is being shoved into a bathroom stall. He trips over his feet. “What?” he manages, before Steve covers his mouth with his giant palm.   
There’s someone else in the bathroom. Bucky doesn’t recognize his face, but he’s wearing a uniform just the same as him and Steve. The man pisses into the urinal and readjusts himself. He looks into the stall where Steve and Bucky are standing.   
“You okay Cap?” The man asks. He’s young. He’s got brown eyes and curly hair. He raises an eyebrow at Bucky.   
“Yeah, we’re fine. Sergeant here just had too much to drink. He’s a little under the weather.”  
Bucky falls to his knees on the hard bathroom tile and gags over the toilet. He’s not even faking.   
  
They take a cab home. Bucky sits slumped against Steve’s shoulder the entire ride. He breathes deep to smell Steve’s cologne. He’s very tired and still fairly drunk, but the smell so comforting and wonderful. He hides his head in the crook of Steve’s neck, and if the driver wonders about it at all, he keeps quiet.   
  
At home, Steve undresses Bucky. He kisses him senseless, and it sobers him up. Bucky says Steve’s name and smiles into the kisses.   
“Bucky, baby, can I?”   
Bucky doesn’t know what Steve is even asking until Steve’s knuckles brush his cock and Bucky laughs, because it’s the smallest thing, the most innocent thing, in comparison to what Bucky wants him to do.   
“Of course sweetheart, M’all yours always,” Bucky mumbles, and then moans when Steve touches him.

In the morning, Bucky groans and rolls over towards Steve. Steve is already awake. He laughs.   
“Are ya hurtin’ Buck?”   
“Fuck yeah, you fucking asshole,” Bucky says, but he’s laughing too. Then he stops, and he feels his chest go cold. “Steve, did we get caught last night?”   
Steve sighs. He puts his hand on Bucky’s shoulder and squeezes. Bucky’s heart beats like a damn hummingbird. “Answer me.”  
“We didn’t, but it was a close thing.”  
Bucky doesn’t know where to begin. He curls into himself. He curls into Steve’s side.   
“It’s my fault, I was too careless.”  
“It’s not just you. I was just as careless, moreso in fact. I was sober.”  
“Nah, honey. We were both fuckin’ stupid this time. But Stevie?”  
“Yeah?”  
“I love you so much.” Bucky pushes his nose into Steve’s shoulder. It’s too big and broad. It used to be bony and a little unpleasant to stick his nose into Steve’s arm.   
“I love you too, Buck.”

 

 

**December 2, 1947**

Bucky packs up a third white undershirt. He rolls up a pair of faded jeans. He’s almost done. He had waited too long. Steve will be home by morning.   
Bucky just hadn’t been able to stop putting it off. He’d wanted to stay in their apartment for as long as possible, try to soak it all up because he couldn’t come back. It had been a foolish thing to do.   
“Where ya headed Buck?” Bucky hears from the doorway. Bucky steels his eyes shut. He has fucked up so terribly. He doesn’t turn away from the bed. He can’t face him. Instead, he stares at the bed—their bed—and grinds his teeth.   
“You weren’t supposed to be home yet.”  
“Yeah, good thing I got back when I did, since you’re on the way out. And not even a kiss goodbye?”  
Bucky forces himself to turn. There’s a look on Steve’s face that he’s never seen before. It’s something like confusion and fear mixed with disappointment. It’s also a little unhinged. “After everything? A fucking note? Couldn’t even face me?”  
“Steve,” is all Bucky says. He’s got no words for this.  
“‘I’ll come back just as soon as you forget me,’ are you fucking serious?” Steve says, reading Bucky’s words back to him, as if Bucky doesn’t know with perfect clarity what he wrote. “I got bad news for you pal. That’s never gonna happen. How the fuck…”  
Bucky sighs. He looks at Steve and tries to keep his voice steady.   
“I’m just trying to do right by you. I just need to do what’s best for both of us.”  
“And where you gonna go? Huh? What’s best for you?”   
“That don’t matter.”  
Steve laughs, angrier than anything. “Just tell me what the fuck your plan is.”  
“Like I said. I don’t matter. I don’t want you followin’ me Rogers.”  
Steve steps towards Bucky. “You don’t want me around, you really leaving me?”  
It sounds so wrong, because Bucky would never leave Steve. Not for anything in the world. Not in the way that Steve means, with his stupid sad blue eyes and his busted up nose that never healed right.  
“Not like that, come on.”  
“No, you’re walking out on me. You’re walkin’ out on _us_.” Steve wipes a hand down his face. His eyes are red and Bucky feels like his guts are spilling out.   
“I started this, I pulled you into this, and I gotta finish it.”  
“How can you say that, like you pulled me in kicking and screaming? Like I didn’t start this same as you, and with a fuckin’ smile on my face. When you kissed me--”  
“Stop,” Bucky pleads but Steve presses on.  
“When you kissed me that first time, that was it Buck. All I’d ever wanted. Happiest moment of my life.”  
“Please don’t say shit like that,” Bucky whispers. He throws his jacket on. He fastens the buckles on the suitcase.   
“Are you really going now?” Steve’s voice is uneven. His eyes are wet and it’s breaking Bucky’s whole heart. His chest tightens, and Bucky’s heart is beating all terrible and rough.   
“I got no choice,” Bucky whispers. He whispers because he doesn’t trust his voice.   
“I’ll beg,” Steve says. “If that’s what I gotta do.”  
Steve gets down on his knees and takes Bucky’s hands in his own. “Please Bucky. Please don’t leave me. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Please.”  
This is so wrong. There’s never been anything more wrong than this. Steve doesn’t beg. He didn’t beg for his Ma’s life, and he didn’t beg for his own life that time he was shot in the gut and none of them knew for sure if Captain Asshole was gonna make it out. Steve’s never on his knees. He’s always fighting, fists raised with all his teeth showing. But Steve is here, on his knees. For Bucky.   
“Come on baby, you don’t gotta beg,” Bucky says, voice gone. He’s on the floor, on his knees just the same as Steve. “Come on honey, get up off the floor.”  
“Are you staying?”  
“Yeah, fine. I’m staying.” Bucky can feel that he’s shaking, and he’s crying like a baby. It’s all quite the opposite of what he had had planned. He feels weak as a kitten.   
Steve kisses him so softly, and pulls them both up off the floor. “Get up Barnes.”  
Bucky allows Steve to pull him up and into the living room. They collapse onto the sofa. On instinct, Bucky takes his pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. He hands one of them to Steve and lights it before lighting his own.   
He’s bone tired from fighting. They’ve had this argument before but Bucky had never gone so far as to buy a fucking planet ticket.   
“I’m sorry,” Bucky mumbles with the cigarette between his teeth.   
“If you wanna go ‘cause you don’t want me anymore? Fine. But you can’t leave _for_ me Bucky. That’s so cruel.”   
“Let me explain,” Bucky says, letting the nicotine zip down all the way to his toes. “How long do you think we can keep doing this? Because if I let myself keep doing this for years and years, I’ll believe I can do it till I’m old and grey. And baby, believe me, I want nothing less than that. But how long can this last? I know I’ve said it before but I’m saying it again. Say we do this for even five more years. Don’t you think people will start to suspect something? Especially if neither of us ever has a lady on his arm? I mean fuck, Steve. Be realistic. I would move heaven and hell for you. I’d walk through fire. Whatever you like.” Bucky pauses to take a drag off his cigarette. He shrugs, and looks Steve in the eye. “But I ain’t gonna be your ruin. I just won’t.”  
“So let’s tell the world. Consequences be damned. I don’t want this secret anyway.”  
“You wanna go to jail?”  
“We can go somewhere else.”  
“What, you wanna be a fuckin’ European?”  
“No, but I will. I already know some French.”  
“Steve. Brooklyn is your home.”  
“No. You’re my home.”  
Bucky nods, clenches his jaw. It hurts, to feel the weight of it. The weight of everything Steve’s got.   
“You know, if we told everyone first, we’d have control. We would have the upper hand. It would be one thing if the whole thing spilled out on accident. But what if we planned it all out?”  
“Steve, don’t be absurd.”   
“I’m being serious.”  
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to make this work.”  
“It comes down to this: I can’t not live Buck. I’d rather be dead. It’s all so worth it.”  
Bucky kisses Steve’s jaw. He lays down and places his head in Steve’s lap. Steve runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair, and Bucky falls asleep like that.   
  
When he wakes hours later he’s in their bed, stripped down to an undershirt and a pair of underpants. Steve must have carried him to bed.   
Exhaustion does funny things to a person. Bucky’s no light sleeper. Couldn’t afford to be since the war. He walks out and sees Steve at the kitchen table. He’s smoking and drawing and looks like some angel painted in one of the churches they walked past in Italy. He sits down across from Steve and rests his elbows on the table. He would kill for a cup of coffee.  
“What time is it?”  
“Ten am.”  
“Did you sleep?”  
“No. I was afraid you would…sorry.”  
“It’s okay. I was supposed to leave for Paris six hours ago.”  
Steve looks back down at his notepad. “What was your plan? What were you gonna do in Paris?”  
“I was gonna drink myself to death.”  
Steve huffs out a humorless laugh. He finishes his cigarette and puts it out in the ashtray. His brows are pulling together and that pretty pink mouth of his is falling open. He’s sad. Bucky knows. Steve would have come home when he was scheduled to in two hours time, and would have found their apartment empty save for some lousy note that wouldn’t have, really, explained jack shit.   
“I’m sorry,” Bucky says for the hundredth time in the last twelve hours.   
“I would have found you,” Steve says confidently.   
“Maybe.”  
“Nah. I would have. No matter how long it took.”  
Bucky doesn’t reply because fuck, Steve doesn’t’ give up. Ever.   
“I love you Steve,” Bucky finally says, quiet and true.  
Steve reaches across the table. He weaves their fingers together and God damn, if anything has ever felt truer than this.

 

 

**July 9, 1935**

It’s so fucking hot. Painfully hot. The sweat rolls off Bucky’s back and soaks into the hardwood. They’ve got the windows open but it’s hardly helping. Steve’s just wearing jeans rolled up to his knees and a white shirt but he may as well take it off, it’s all stuck to his skin. Steve is self-conscious like that, he’d rather sweat through his shirt and have to wash it out in the tub later than just take it off. It’s a crime really. It eats Bucky up. Steve is all hard lines and big blue eyes. It makes Bucky’s mouth water.   
They lay on the floor, passing a Cola back and forth.   
Bucky rolls onto his belly. He looks at Steve with his skinny arms jutting out of his too big shirt sleeves. He rolls his big blue eyes at Bucky. “What?”   
“We gotta get out of here. Do you think we could find a fire hydrant to bust?”  
“Yeah right.”  
“What about a hose?”  
“Better yet, why don’t we just go to the ocean?”  
“That shit smells awful, if we do that we’re gonna smell like rotten fish and gasoline.”   
Steve laughs. He runs a hand through his sweaty hair. “I’m just desperate.” Steve swallows hard, his adam’s apple bobbing. Bucky bites his lip, looks away. It’s just unfair. In what universe should this be allowed? _You’re desperate? You and me both buddy.  
_Bucky dreams of a cold shower for a couple of reasons.   
“Just imagine Buck. A big pool, completely empty. We could do lap after lap and no one would bother us.”  
“Draw me a picture,” Bucky finds himself saying. So Steve does. He picks himself up off the floor and goes to find his sketchpad. His rolled up pant leg falls down his right leg.   
Steve comes back and folds his legs up underneath him. He puts pencil to paper and sticks his tongue out one side of his mouth in concentration. It’s fucking adorable. Bucky turns away, feeling all splayed out and Steve’s not even looking at him.   
Steve turns his notebook around after a few minutes.   
It’s not a pool. It’s Bucky’s and Steve’s feet dangling over the dock. Bucky’s left ankle is crossing over Steve’s right foot. They’re getting all tangled up. Bucky doesn’t know why this affects him so much. He’s almost mad about it, that familiar tightening in his chest. He loves Stevie. Will till the day he dies. It’s just one of those moments that hammers it in.   
“That ain’t no pool.”  
“No, but there’s probably a breeze coming off the water.” Steve shrugs. He pulls at the collar of his shirt, trying to air out the dampness. “It could be nice.”   
“Yeah pal, it could be nice. Let’s go.”   
They take the Cola with them. It hadn’t been cheap, a luxury like that. It takes them two hours to split it, neither one wanting to have the last of it. It tastes hot by the time Bucky finally takes the last dregs of it. They sit out on the pier, leaning back on their palms. Steve’s shoulders are gonna get sunburnt.

 

 

**January 27, 1947**  
  
And there’s something ugly and selfish too, that he hoped Steve would never know: he was being selfish not telling another living soul. He wanted Steve to be just his. Like before the war and before the serum. There was something awful and raw and familiar about the idea of everyone knowing, just like when Steve’s outsides stared to match his insides.

 

 

 

**Spring, 1948**

 

Inevitably, they follow Bucky’s bliss, only by Steve’s begging. They go to the Grand Canyon and everywhere in between.

Steve drives most of the time. They eat in small diners along the highways. Bucky drinks a lot of coffee and smokes a lot of cigarettes lazily over pieces of cherry pie.   
Steve takes out a sketchpad and doodles the view from the diner’s window. He draws the parking lot and the man and woman sitting on the hood of their car, holding hands and sharing one cigarette between them. The woman’s pink dress falls over her knees and the man places a hand on her thigh. Steve smiles at them, these strangers in love, because of course he does, because that is just so Steve: to smile at someone else’s happiness.   
“Where are we now?”   
“Kansas.”  
“That means we’re close to Colorado. The mountains. We could get spend a week up there. All alone.” Just the thought of being so in the middle of everything yet being so cut off from the rest of the world, just with Steve, makes Bucky’s mouth go dry.   
“Yeah. We could hike it. We have the tent. We’ll stock up.”  
“I think that sounds like a plan.” Bucky leans back in the booth and crosses his arms over his chest. Steve smiles, looks at Bucky from under his eyelashes.  
They pay the bill and get in the car. Steve pulls out of the parking lot and Bucky gets one last look at the couple, all smiles and bright colors against the clear blue sky. He wonders what it would be like to sit with Steve like that, with a hand on his thigh, and to have a stranger smile at their existence instead of, what Bucky can only assume, is cold disgust. And Bucky can’t help himself but he wonders: what the hell did their love cost them? Was it painful for them, to lean into each other and kiss on the hood of that car, all pink and blue and wild in love? Bucky knows the answer: it cost them not a God damn thing.

 

They buy food, cigarettes, and matches on their way to the mountains. They have packed warm clothes for going up in the mountains, and have liquor (made for super soldiers and standard) stashed away in their packs. Steve parks the car near a small patch of trees and then they begin their trek.

It’s only after hours and hours and hours that Steve deems it okay to pitch a tent.  
“No one can find us up here,” Steve says, a wicked grin spreading across his face.   
“Yeah, what did you have in mind?”  
“Oh, nothing too crazy. I just want you to fuck me until I don’t know my own name,” Steve says, in a voice so terribly knowing and dark. Bucky’s breath catches in his throat.   
“I think I can manage that,” Bucky whispers back.   


The first night up in the mountains, Steve makes them a fire. They cook sausages and then Bucky breaks out the liquor. Steve is giggly as a schoolgirl after a few long pulls off the bottle of super soldier jet fuel. Bucky is feeling light and wonderful, being where he is, with who he is with, it feels like a fucking miracle that he is here at all.   
Bucky pins Steve to the ground, the nearby fire licking lovely patterns across Steve’s face. Bucky pushes all of his weight onto Steve. Steve is laughing hysterically, all full from his torso and belly.   
“Let me up!” Steve says. Bucky’s knees are digging into Steve’s chest. Bucky dregs up all the spit from the back of his throat and Steve wails, horror in his voice. Bucky doesn’t get up though. He swishes his spit around in his mouth and Steve screams, laughs so hard tears are streaming down his face, and puts his hands up to protect himself.   
Bucky lets a line of spit fall down, out of his mouth. Steve’s got his eyes squeezed shut and could push Bucky off if he really wanted.   
“Mercy! Mercy!” Steve yells. Bucky sucks the spit back into his mouth. He swallows it back down and Steve groans with disgust. Bucky laughs and relents, gets up off Steve and rolls over onto his back in the grass.   
“Sorry honey, I just couldn’t resist,” Bucky says, drunk and laughing like it’s nothing but for a minute he thinks: _that’s it, that’s the whole of it.  
  
_

They continue to drink around the fire, and it almost feels like it’s 1943 again. Steve is soft at Bucky’s side. He has a hand on Bucky’s stomach and his nose is in the crook of Bucky’s neck.   
“M’sleepy,” Bucky says.   
“Go to bed, sweetheart. I’ll put the fire out.”  
Bucky pushes himself up and wanders into the tent. He falls asleep on a bunch of blankets. Bucky is only vaguely aware of the fire going out and being replaced by Steve’s warmth curling around Bucky’s body.   
Bucky wakes up very early. He wiggles away from Steve’s side and unzips the tent. He walks out onto the grass, and takes in the view.   
They are so high up and away from the world. The sky is grey and white and blue, and orange right at the bottom. The sun is just about to come up over the mountains. Bucky ducks back into the tent and shakes Steve awake.   
“Steve! Steve wake up! You gotta see this!”  
“Huh?” Steve wipes the sleep from his eyes. “What’s going on?”  
“The sun honey, the fuckin’ sun.”

 

  
A night later, when it’s pitch dark, Steve lights a lantern inside the tent. It’s hardly enough light but Bucky can just make out the lovely shapes that are Steve: his perfectly pouting mouth, the strong jaw, the shoulders that are so much wider than they ever used to be.   
Bucky is kissing Steve, warm and soft and he hopes, in a way that let’s Steve know just how much he’s loved. He puts his right hand under Steve’s left leg and pulls it closer. He kisses his naked thigh and then makes his way all the way down. Steve makes the noise of a dying, aching creature in the back of his throat. Bucky pulls the blankets around them a little closer to Steve, so he’s got a little cushion under his back. He kisses each side of Steve’s his thighs. Then he bends forward and kisses Steve’s mouth. Steve laughs a little, then makes a horrible whimper noise.   
“Please Buck,” he says, and Bucky has no option but to agree.   
It’s in the way he says it, but Bucky breathes ‘yes’ and bites down on Steve’s clavicle.   
Steve is incredible. Bucky kisses Steve, biting down on his bottom lip so fucking hard he should be embarrassed but can’t be, won’t be. “I want you. Is this okay? I just--” Bucky asks, because God, he’s so wildly in love that he can’t possibly misconstrue it. They’ve been together for a while now, but it feels different now, so far away from the rest of the world.   
“Sweetheart, please. Of course it’s okay,” Steve says, and pulls Bucky back down to him. Steve licks his way into Bucky’s mouth, and Bucky thinks he may die,   
Steve hasn’t done this with anyone else. Half the time, Bucky wonders if that is why he feels so insane about making Steve feel so fuckin’ good. Steve has had no one else. Bucky wants Steve to feel incredible at every moment, because Steve doesn’t know any better. He whines into Steve’s mouth.   
Bucky leads himself into Steve, and then falls on top of him. Steve laughs but hardly moves, like he knows if he does he’ll collapse. Bucky laughs too. “Fuck you, buddy,” Bucky finds himself saying, then “I love you so bad.” He pushes into Steve and rests his elbows around Steve’s face. Steve grabs Bucky’s backside and pushes him farther in. Bucky kisses the side of Steve’s face and then forgets his own fucking name, letting his body do all the work.

It’s terrible, how Bucky moves against Steve. Bucky finds himself too early, and embarrassed by the sounds he makes as loses himself. He moves away after, then begins to suck a bruise onto Steve’s ribcage. He does this repeatedly, in different places, until he feels Steve’s body trembling against his own, until he finally makes his way all the way down. Bucky swells with love. He ducks his head down and takes Steve in his mouth.

It’s in this moment, when he has his face between Steve’s legs and three fingers inside of him, still shaky from his own orgasm that he realizes he would do anything for Steve. There’s nothing in the world he wouldn’t do.

  
  
When they are very nearly asleep and all Bucky can hear are crickets , he kisses Steve’s temple and says “Let’s do it. I won’t fight you no more. Wherever you wanna go, whatever you wanna do, let’s do it, because no one can take you away from me. If they think they can they’re gonna have to handle a knife in their chest.”   
“You mean it, you wanna let the world know?”  
“For you? Sure. What are they gonna do? Split us up? Put us behind bars? Don’t matter. I’ll find you.”

In the morning, they cook steak over a small fire and Bucky breaks off small pieces of bread and cheese. Bucky looks out at the landscape. The mountains are beautiful. They make Bucky feel so small and insignificant and God, he loves it. There are a thousand trees tracing the blue Colorado sky. He’s wanted to come here since he can remember.   
They eat. Bucky shoves pieces of baguette into Steve’s face like it’s wedding cake. The little fire Steve made burns brightly around them. They’re both barefoot, and Steve keeps poking Bucky’s right foot with his toes.   
“It’s still weird that you’re bigger than me,” Bucky jokes, like it hasn’t been years since Steve has been so small a strong wind could knock him over.   
“It is,” Steve agrees, which shocks Bucky a little. “I keep trying to make my way under your arm like I still fit there.”  
“You always fit there,” Bucky says, but he knows what Steve means. “I wonder who is stronger now,” Bucky continues jokingly, as though Steve isn’t a super soldier made by science. A building could fall on Steve now and he’d still get up.   
“That’s an interesting thought,” Steve says, one eyebrow raised. “I would say me but you’ve always known exactly where to hit to take someone down.” Steve smiles after he says it, then leans down and kisses Bucky. Bucky continues the kiss but pulls Steve up from where he’s sitting outside the tent.   
“Fight me now, let’s find out,” Bucky says. He puts his hands up and smiles all wicked at Steve. Steve smiles back, just as dark.   
  
Bucky is looking up at Steve over his knuckles. Steve is smiling all lovely and gentle but there’s something dark in his eyes. He knows Steve will hold back, he’ll have to. Steve could kill mortal men with one punch. And there’s something very exciting about that. “Give me your best shot, Rogers.”   
Steve does. He throws a punch and Bucky blocks it. It isn’t easy, but he does. At the same time he hits Steve in the stomach. Steve grunts, but doesn’t show any real sign of being hit. Steve strikes again, this time right in Bucky’s collarbone. Bucky yelps, then laughs. It’s painful, but it’s Steve. He’s helped Steve fight a hundred fuckers, but never once has Steve used those fists on Bucky. They’ve never roughhoused before, because it had been impossible. Before the war, Bucky would have broken Steve’s spine in half. After, they’d hardly had the time. When Steve hits, it’s not meant to really hurt, so it’s funny, because Bucky suspects if Steve really wanted to, he could kill Bucky with just his hands.   
Bucky throws all of his weight into Steve’s left side. He throws him against a tree and Steve hisses in pain. Steve throws another punch at Bucky and just by a second, he misses. Bucky grins. Steve sighs like he’s been doing this all his life. In some ways, he has.   
“You’re going easy on me,” Bucky says, breathing heavy in Steve’s ear.   
“I’m actually not.” Steve looks a little manic. “I’m a little distracted.” Bucky laughs at that. He is too, but he’s having fun. Bucky moves back from Steve, the grass tickling his bare feet.   
“Go for it, sweetheart.”  
Steve plunges forward and when he throws his punch, this time it’s true. Bucky stumbles backwards. He puts his hands to his nose and when he takes his hands away they’re covered in blood.   
“Aw, fuck, Bucky,” Steve says, and Bucky can hear panic in his voice. The thing is, it doesn’t hurt as bad as he thought it would, and Bucky loves nothing more than pulling Steve’s leg. “Are you okay?”   
Bucky doesn’t speak, just lets out a faked moan. Steve moves close, his big blue eyes near tears and Bucky only feels a little guilty when he punches Steve in the mouth. Bucky cracks a laugh as he watches Steve realize he’s been fine the whole time. He’s bleeding sure, but that’s nothing new.   
“Bucky, you piece of shit, I thought I really hurt you!” Steve says, but he’s laughing a little too.   
“I mean, ya did hurt me. I’m clearly bleeding. It was just so easy Stevie.” Bucky spits blood into the grass. “How’s the lip?”  
“I heal fast.” Steve wipes his bloody mouth on the back of his hand. He’s gorgeous.   
“What, are you done?” Bucky asks. He holds his hand up and with one finger motions Steve forward.   
Steve smiles, bright as the sun beating down on them.   
“I could do this all day,” Steve says, then barrels towards Bucky.   
Bucky laughs, high and light, until the moment Steve knocks him breathless into the grass. All two hundred and fifty pounds of him. The air leaves Bucky’s lungs, and Steve is on top of him as he thuds into the grass. Steve kisses him silly with a bloody lip. His mouth tastes metallic and it doesn’t matter. Bucky feels that Steve is already hard and he ruts his hips up. Steve gasps, so Bucky does it again. And again. Until Steve does it back and then stupidly and surprisingly enough Steve’s breath hitches. He’s come in his jeans. Bucky laughs at him. “Damn Rogers, I didn’t know I was that good!”  
“Shut the hell up, Buck,” Steve says, and unzips Bucky’s pants. He takes Bucky in his hands and Bucky shudders.   
“You’re awful, you know that?” Bucky licks at his lip. There’s blood dripping down from his nose.   
“Not as bad as you.”  
“Punk.”  
“Jerk.”  
Bucky falls apart in Steve’s hands.   


 

Bucky kisses Steve breathless. The air here is clean and pure. He pulls away for just a moment, and looks out over the landscape. It’s ubiquitous and perfect. It’s ancient. The whole world can see them. God can see them. Bucky kisses Steve again. He isn’t smote down immediately. God can see them.

 

“What’s it like,” Bucky finds himself asking, curiosity getting the better of him, “liking guys and gals just the same?”   
Steve sighs. He rolls over onto his back. He’s smiling a little, so Bucky knows he doesn’t mind the question. He welcomes it even. Steve bites his bottom lip. “It’s like admiring the ocean and admiring the stars. They aren’t the same at all, but they’re both endlessly beautiful, both _should_ be admired. I notice different things. I like different things. With girls I always liked a nice laugh, and when a girl is funny? Do you remember Doris Elmbrook? She was in school with us and no one really paid me any attention but sometimes she would say something so funny to me that she’d make milk come out my nose. I always liked her a lot. I didn’t say nothing, but I liked her a lot. With guys I like it when I can see they’re sweet. I know you always think you were being sneaky, but I know how well you looked after me Buck. For both I just like when someone keeps me in my place. Someone who is real honest with me. Above all, it’s the person. It just doesn’t much matter if it’s a guy or gal. That’s why it’s always been you I suppose.”   
“You big sap,” Bucky says, and flicks Steve right in the middle of his forehead. Steve laughs and pushes Bucky’s hand away.  
“What about for you?” Steve asks. He’s speaking carefully. “You always said that I had a choice and you didn’t. And you know, I used to think I was in trouble because I noticed other men sometimes but I can’t imagine what my brain woulda been doin’ if I’d only had the one troubling option.” Steve looks to Bucky, seeing that he hasn’t spoken out of hand.   
“I think I’ve been lucky,” Bucky says, shrugging. “It was always you anyway, just you that I wanted from the get. I noticed others, sure, but you were always there in the background. Besides, I mostly felt guilty about the dames. I tried Stevie. I tried numerous times. I wanted to want girls. I liked it even, when I could make ‘em smile or laugh. Even when I could make them do other things.” Bucky smiles. He thinks of light little sighs and surprised, delighted gasps. It was nice. It wasn’t what he had wanted to hear, but they were still nice. “The thing is, as nice as all those girls were, and I’m terrible, cause I danced with a lot of them, but the thing is, they weren’t what I was reaching for. Just once I hoped for something a little rougher. The things I dreamed up Steve, I swear, I felt terrible for it. The things I wanted were just awful. And delicious.” Bucky rummages around in the tent, under the ruined blankets, and finds his pack of cigarettes. He lights one and then hands one to Steve. They both need a smoke. Nobody talks about these things. “I actually thought my brain was just broken till I saw two fellas kissin’ at night by the docks. I had gone back to work because I’d left my jacket. I saw them. Lookin’ back I think it was real sweet. They were being so careful with each other like they thought the other would break. That was the first time I realized I wasn’t alone. Not like I could go and ask ‘em about it. I don’t know Stevie. I don’t know what it’s like to be like this. I only know that girls are never what I thought about when I fell asleep at night.”   
“Huh. Buck, I’m sorry I didn’t know sooner.”  
“Not anything we could have done about it.”  
“What, like you wouldn’t have wanted to kiss me at fifteen?”  
Bucky bites out a laugh. They’ve talked about it before, and Bucky knows there’s little else he would have wanted, but he prefers this life, the one where Steve is his off the battlefield. “Are you suggesting we would have gone to war knowing what we know now? Stevie, honey, I never would have made it. I barely held it together as it is.”  Steve laughs and it’s a low rumble. All rough just like Bucky always wanted. “Baby, if I had had you when I was a teenager I wouldn’t have been able to keep it quiet. I probably would have given us away when we were out there walkin’ over the landscape of France or some shit. I woulda just died.”  
“Just the idea,” Steve says, and turns his head to Bucky. “It’s a little daunting.”  
“Daunting?” Bucky takes a drag and blows smoke out of the side of his face. “Why would it be daunting for you?” Steve’s cigarette burns between his fingertips. He gets ash in their blankets.   
“Yeah. If it had been the old me? Christ Buck, I wouldn’t have known how to act.”   
“I don’t get it. It would have been the same,” Bucky insists.   
“Oh Buck, you have no idea just how handsome you are do you? I wanted you all the time but I just couldn’t even see myself with you. I was never comfortable in that body.”  
“Are you in this one?”  
“No.” Steve laughs then, so loud and wonderful. “No, I’m not.”   
“So what’s it matter?” Bucky demands. “I wanted you then, in that body, just as much as I want you now, in case you didn’t know.”  
“Nah I just, I would have been so self-conscious. Bucky I’m serious. I always thought even if I got you where I wanted you I just…would have frozen up.”  
“Yeah right,” Bucky says. “I don’t believe that for a second.”  
“Buck, I’m being serious!”  
“Yeah so am I! You woulda been the same, I don’t give a shit if it’s this body or the other one, you were the most beautiful boy in Brooklyn!” Bucky is breathing heavy. He needs to make Steve understand. “Even when you were sick! When I thought you were dyin’ in that bed of a fever. When you were bleeding from another broken nose because you were a hundred pounds wet and couldn’t keep your mouth shut! I wanted to kiss you better. I wanted to kiss your whole body better. Understand? I wanted to make your whole body feel better.”   
Steve watches Bucky. He tilts his head to the side and then reaches his hand out for Bucky’s.   
“Let’s be honest,” Steve says, holding onto Bucky’s hand, “You would have broken me in half with half the shit you do with me now.”   
Bucky laughs so hard his lungs hurt.   
“I probably would have had to be a little gentle with you. But would you do me a favor?” Bucky asks.   
“Anything,” Steve says immediately.   
“Could you kiss me real nice?” Bucky asks. Steve obliges.   
  


They pack up the tiny world they’ve made. Bucky hates himself, but he feels downright miserable leaving this mountain.   
He stares at the blanket he’s folding in his hands. His back hurts. He’s been sleeping on the ground for a week and after all, he’s only human. Unlike Steve. Bucky’s hands shake as he finishes folding the fuckin’ thing, and he pushes the blanket into his pack.   
“Buck?”  
Steve is staring at him. Bucky doesn’t want to explain. He doesn’t want to go back. Out here, Steve is all his, and they’re all out in the open. They don’t hide here. It’s perfect. But Bucky knows it can’t last. Besides, they have some more of the country to see.

 

New Mexico is hot and the desert is terribly dry. They find a motel off the highway and a small bar nearby. Steve orders whiskey just for the taste, and Bucky drinks three beers in quick succession. His skin feels too tight and all the sudden he needs to be back in the motel with Steve. They pay and go back to their room, and as soon as the door is shut Bucky bites down on Steve’s bottom lip. Steve cups Bucky’s face in his hands and Bucky turns his face so that Steve’s thumb is against his lower lip. He puts Steve’s thumb against his mouth, bites gently, then sucks it into his mouth. Steve gasps and Bucky laughs, though it isn’t long before Steve’s got him pinned to the bed.

 

Steve falls asleep and they don’t have a plan so Bucky drives all the way to the ocean. They were pretty close anyhow. Bucky parks the car and watches the sun high over the water through the windshield. The water sparkles and it’s blinding.   
Bucky turns to his left and sees, about ten yards out, two women sitting on the beach. The woman with long blonde hair has her arms around the other. The second woman has short red hair and she’s smiling. They both look around, and then softly, carefully, the one with blonde hair tilts her head and kisses her companion. Bucky’s breath catches. When they pull away from each other they are smiling. The woman with red hair takes her friend’s hand and kisses the tips of each finger. Bucky knows he shouldn’t be allowed to see this, but he’s grateful, because he’s never seen two women like this before, and the way that they touch each other, so careful and sweet, it makes him think of the way he and Steve touched each other when they first started to, like they might fuck up at any moment, like they might break each other or themselves by allowing it.   
Bucky turns away from the two women. He looks back at the water. He lets Steve sleep for five more minutes. The women walk away, closer to the water and farther away from Bucky.   
Steve blinks his eyes open and his brows pull together in confusion. He looks around and when he sees the ocean a smile blooms across his face and Jesus Christ, it’s all been worth it, any pain has been beyond worth it, to see him smile like that.   


 

**August 13, 1949**  
  
“I think we should tell Carter and Stark.”  
Steve’s face is blank. Bucky hates when he looks like that. He knows Steve like the back of his hand but when he looks like this all Bucky can assume is that Steve is worried.   
“Come on, say something?” Bucky says. He hates that he has to prompt it. Steve isn’t even really looking at Bucky anymore. He’s looking somewhere else far away.   
“Peggy?”   
Bucky fights the urge to roll his eyes.   
“Baby, she was gonna know when the whole world knew, huh? What’s the difference?”   
Steve looks at the floor, then shrugs.  
“It doesn’t matter if she knows just…I don’t know how to tell her.”  
“I’ll tell her,” Bucky says, because that was what he planned anyway, but there’s also a little satisfaction in telling Pegs himself. It’s ridiculous, and doesn’t matter now. Carter is marrying someone else, has the ring to prove it. Still, the satisfaction tugs at Bucky.   
“You sure?”  
“It’s no problem,” Bucky lies. He’s ninety percent sure Carter will understand. Still, if she doesn’t take it well they’ll have hell to pay.

 

 

Bucky meets Carter in London. They eat dinner together at a restaurant in the city. Bucky orders a steak and drinks three glasses of scotch before they leave. He hates being nervous like this. He adjusts his tie four times at least. Peggy watches him pensively over her own glass of scotch, because of course she drinks scotch, she’s the hardest woman Bucky has ever met.   
“Darling, you asked me here for a reason, you didn’t just want to get together. The two of us don’t do things like that.”  
“Should I not have asked?”   
“Of course you should have James. I like you, even if you don’t like me.”  
“Don’t like you?” Bucky says, nearly choking on his drink.   
“We’re too similar James. It’s understandable. You remember how we were before. We would argue about tactics ‘til the sun came up.”  
“Sure, we’d argue. But I always liked you. Respected the hell out of ya.”  
“Respect and like are very, very different.” Peggy sips her drink. She smirks behind her glass and Bucky can’t help but laugh. So she was right, but what’s new?   
“Okay. I do need to talk, but we have to go somewhere else.”  
“Finish your drink James. Then tell me where we should go.”  
  
They walk around Hyde Park for ten minutes before Carter gives Bucky a Look, one that makes Bucky feel like Carter has dug around in his guts.   
“I need a favor Carter. I’m asking this but it’s hardly asking. You may hate me in a minute.”  
Bucky reaches into his pocket and finds his pack of cigarettes. He offers Carter one. She nods and he lights it for her, like a gentleman. “I don’t know how to tell you, but I need your help.”   
“Just spit it out, for fuck’s sake,” Peggy says, because she knows Bucky always laughs and admires her all the more when she cusses. Steve was so right to love her.   
Bucky thinks of at least ten ways to phrase it. He takes a drag from his cigarette.   
“You got that ring on your finger Carter. It’s just gorgeous,” Bucky starts. Carter nods. “I’ve got someone I’d like to give a ring to, but it’s not possible. It wouldn’t be right, you understand?”  
“Steven,” Carter says immediately. She puts her cigarette to her lips and smiles just the smallest amount.   
“Uh,” Bucky says, but admittedly has no idea how to continue. Peggy laughs, light and lovely. She puts a hand on Bucky’s shoulder.   
“I’ve been waiting for you to tell me for ages.”  
“So you did know.”  
“I knew.”  
“You gonna turn us in?” Bucky asks, chest heaving. He’s worried his heart will jump out of his chest. Or that he’ll vomit on Carter. Or both.   
“I’d never,” Carter whispers. She takes Bucky’s hand in her own and weaves their fingers together. “I’d never.”   
Bucky looks down at the tangled fingers. He likes it, holding hands with Carter. He also hates so much that he can hold hands with this woman he loves in public but if he did the same with Steve, they’d be handcuffed.   
“We don’t know what to do.”  
Peggy puts a hand to Bucky’s face. Her palm is soft and warm. Bucky leans into the touch. He’s not told anyone else before.   
“We can figure it out. I don’t have an answer yet James, but I will. You and Steve will be safe, that I promise you.”  
Bucky nearly starts weeping.   
“Thank you.”   
“Of course. I love you both,” Carter says, and Bucky can tell she means it. Bucky squeezes the hand she’s still holding.   
“I told him we could trust you. He didn’t want to come today. I’m sorry. You two have a history, I think he felt it wrong to tell a lady such things.”  
Carter laughs, then takes another drag of her cigarette.   
“Of course he would think it improper. He’s a wonderful man. I loved him once too, you know.”   
“I know you did. I saw how you two were. He loved you like crazy. It made me…happy and thankful and sick all at once.” She laughs again. She’s beautiful. “I always wondered how you managed to say no.”  
“There were a few reasons I said no. I was just getting started. I had a career to think about. I couldn’t marry Steven. He would have been the most perfect husband, I’m sure, but I couldn’t. It simply wasn’t possible.”  
Bucky swallows. “You want to say more.”  
“I was getting to it. I never told Steve. I said no because of you.”   
Bucky chokes on his breath. “Me?”   
“James. He wasn’t free. I knew he wasn’t.”  
Bucky squeezes her hand again. She squeezes back for support.   
“So you knew the whole time?”   
“I had my suspicions. The way you were with each other…you would know where he was before he knew where he was going. I would never compete with that. I wouldn’t want to.”  
“Carter. He loved you desperately.”  
“I know, and I him. He loved you more. He never would have said. Would never admit such a thing. But he did.”   
“Peggy, please--” Bucky begins, but Carter comes him off.   
“Oh, don’t be silly. I’m only being honest. You know I’m right.”  
Bucky doesn’t know. It’s hard to convince himself of such a thing.   
“No one can know that but him.”   
“I suppose so. But I also think one should never lie to oneself, don’t you?”  
Bucky laughs at that, shakes his head.   
“Carter.” He says her name, because that’s all he can say. He shrugs. He’s got nothing better.   
“Buchanan.” Peggy puts out her cigarette. “I’ll have to tell Howard.”  
“I hoped you would.”  
  
“I’ll be honest. I don’t know how he’ll react.”  
“I didn’t know how you would react. No one ever knows. That’s what makes this shit so scary.”  
“Darling,” Peggy says, but it isn’t condescending. It’s truly worried. She’s sweet. “Even if he were to take it badly, I would make sure it wouldn’t make any difference to your life. If he were to take it poorly, I would simply ensure he never spoke to you or Steven ever again.”   
“That’s a lot to ask Carter.”  
“I do think he’ll be fine though. And you know, if we can get him on our side, we can get half the world on our side.”

 

**November 19, 1949**

“If we’re telling the world, I have to tell my fuckin’ Ma first,” Bucky had told Steve. He had really meant the whole Barnes family, with all his sisters and his Ma and his Da there. They had arranged it, a family meal, and it was easy because Bucky’s Ma has always said that Steve was her son just as much as Bucky.   
They had had a full Sunday roast and now they are sitting around the dining room table with coffees poured and cigarettes lit.   
Bucky looks at Steve. Steve nods. That’s all there is. Just Steve nodding, and being a constant presence next to Bucky’s side. Steve will always fit right under Bucky’s arm, like they’re kids. There’s Steve. Steve. Bucky is already close to crying and he hasn’t even spoken.   
“Hey Ma, there’s something me and Steve gotta say.”  
She tilts her head to the right and puts her coffee cup down. Becca, off to the side, does the same. He wonders if this will be the last time they look at him like this: with their undivided attention, with love in their eyes. He might be sick.   
“Me and Steve, we’re gonna. We.” Bucky thinks he can do it. He thinks he can say what he had planned to say. He had meant to say: _Me and Steve are gonna make an announcement, and we need to tell you all before we tell everyone else. Me and Steve are together. I don’t know how else to say it. He’s mine and I’m his.  
_Instead, Bucky starts crying. He puts a hand in his hand and tries to compose himself. It barely works.   
“James, honey, what is it?” his Ma asks, all loving and Bucky cries harder. Steve still does not reach out to him, god fuckin’ bless him. “You’re scaring your mother.”   
“Ma, I gotta say it. I love you so much. Please.”   
Steve finally reaches out. He puts one hand on Bucky’s shoulder.   
“Whatever it is. Baby, look at me!”  
Bucky looks into his mother’s eyes. Her eyes are fierce and raw and beautiful. He takes a deep breath. He has lived through torture, and war, and death. This is simple.   
“I’m with Steve,” Bucky says finally. “I’m with him like you’re with Dad. I’m in love with him, Ma.” Bucky’s voice is hardly a whisper. He might be sick soon, but he’s looking into his mother’s eyes and her body is slumping forward, but she’s slumping _forward_ , she isn’t recoiling.   
“Oh, my baby,” she finally says. She looks from Bucky to Steve, and the fact that she is looking at the both of them is enough to break Bucky. “So what is it? Steven Grant Rogers, do you love my son?”  
“Very much,” Steve breathes. He’s so beautiful and nervous.   
“Good. And are you good to him? Steven? Are you good to my son?”  
“I really, really hope I am.”  
“Then who the hell cares?”   
Bucky starts crying in earnest. Becca comes to his side, holds him as his body shakes.

 

**March 22, 1950**

“I did my best. I called in a lot of favors. A lot of favors I had been saving for something else but, I guess I like you two enough,” Stark says.   
“Thank you Howard,” Steve says.   
“Yeah, Harry really owed me actually. So you’re pardoned.”  
“Just like that?” Bucky demands. Just because they know some people high up they’re pardoned?   
“Well not _just like that_ Barnes, it wasn’t actually easy if you must know. But yeah. You can scream it from the rooftops if you want, it’ll be fine.”   
Bucky scoffs. He isn’t ungrateful, it just hardly seems right.   
“I set up a date and time for you to make your announcement Captain. It won’t be for a while, but I figure you want some time to prepare. I also want you to know that I’ll be there when you do give a statement. I hate to brag, but I’m generally well liked, my name holds a lot of weight. I think it’ll help.”  
“We appreciate that. Truly,” Steve says and it’s so earnest. Bucky sighs. Steve doesn’t even like Stark. Bucky licks his lips and forces himself to just accept the gift.   
“Thank you.”   
“I’m happy to do it.”

 

**September 4, 1950**

Bucky finds the letter laying out on the kitchen table. It’s Steve’s handwriting, the curves of each letter familiar to Bucky since age six, watching Steve practice his penmanship at his rickety desk, so small he shouldn’t have been able to exist at all.   
Bucky picks up the paper with a shaky hand and reads

_An Open Letter To The American People:  
  
My name is Steven Grant Rogers, but some of you may know me better as Captain America. Really, I’m just a scrawny kid from Brooklyn that happened to get very, very lucky. For the last five years I have been proud and honored to serve this great country and that is why, this afternoon, it is with very mixed emotions that this be my last act as Captain Rogers.   
There have been certain events that have transpired in my life, and because of them, I must step down from my position. These events, however, I would not change, even if I had the choice.   
When I came back from the war in the spring of 1945, I came back with my friend, Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of the 107 Infantry Regiment, just as we had always planned. What we had not planned was beginning a romantic relationship, one that I suspect had been forming before the war. One that had probably been forming since we were kids, though I do not claim to speak for Sergeant Barnes himself.   
Though I understand the laws of this country and the viewpoints held against relationships like mine and Sergeant Barnes’, I do not regret it. He is one of the finest soldiers I have ever had the honor to serve with, and he is also my best friend.   
I do not expect this news to be received well, but I cannot be anything less than completely honest. I hoope that you all, the citizens of this great country, will find these words with compassion and will know that I have given each word of my statement immense thought. I know that because of who I am, I am endlessly lucky given the circumstances. Thank you all for your time._

Then there it is, his signature at the bottom of the page, that he does not need, because he will be giving a speech. But it’s there: _Steven Grant Rogers, September 5, 1950._

There’s probably a million edits on the thing. Carter probably gave Steve a list of words he couldn’t use. He refers to Bucky as James, which he hasn’t done since the first day they met.

Bucky holds back the choked sob he feels bubbling inside his chest. He is scared. He is scared like he’s in the middle of a field, shrapnel falling and hitting the ground, guns goin’ off in his ears. He is scared like the first time he kissed Steve. He is scared like Steve is coughing up a lung in the winter and Bucky thinks that he might cough up blood next.   
Bucky doesn’t think he’s worth all this. Couldn’t be. But Steve wants to do this and he’s never been able to stop Steve from doing anything.   
And Bucky thinks about the bigger picture. This isn’t just about him and Steve. This is about something larger than the two of them. Bucky thinks about the two men he saw at the docks. He thinks about the two women in California, on the beach, sneaking a kiss hoping nobody saw, and with any luck only Bucky had seen. There are people like them everywhere, and they’re all keeping their love a secret. To think that there could be hundreds, thousands of people living like he and Steve are? Maybe Steve does have to do this. Maybe it will help.   
Bucky puts down the paper. He goes to the bedroom. Steve is just waking up. He rubs the sleep from his eyes and then notices Bucky standing in the doorway. Steve smiles at him, like he didn’t write that statement last night, like everything is right with the world. Maybe for this moment, when it is just the two of them in the early morning, sun coming through the blinds, it is.   
“Come here, Buck,” Steve says, and Bucky obliges. He crawls into bed next to the love of his life. He puts his head in Steve’s lap and lets Steve play with his hair and scratch at his scalp. He sighs. “You need to shave.”  
“So do you.”

 

 

**1932**  
  
They are running fast. Their feet are pounding on the concrete. They’re running from someone, and suddenly Bucky can’t recall what they were running from because Steve has grabbed his hand and pulled him down an alley.   
“Shh, stay still,” Steve says. He’s so small, and he’s got his back pressed to the wall of brick. He’s still holding Bucky’s hand.   
Steve takes his other hand and pulls Bucky terribly close. Steve’s tiny body is warm and precious. They are chest to chest. Bucky huffs out a breath. He leans his head down. He and Steve are cheek to cheek. Steve shushes him again and pulls Bucky closer, closer. It’s all so sick. There’s a creature in Bucky’s chest that goes cold and delighted, starts his heart beating in some greedy drunk way. “I think they’re gone,” Steve says. Bucky moves his face away. Steve stares up at Bucky from under his long eyelashes. His mouth is pink, and the freckles strewn across his nose are unbearably beautiful. “What is it Buck?”  
Bucky says nothing.   
There is a brief and sinful moment where Bucky thinks Steve is going to get on his tiptoes and drag his lips across Bucky’s own. The thought makes Bucky go still and makes his chest do something ugly and delightful. His stomach flips over. Steve watches him carefully.   
Of course, Steve does not kiss him. Steve smiles ever so sweet at Bucky but then turns away and eventually moves away from Bucky’s body. Steve is not his. He does not want Bucky that way.   
But still: Steve is Bucky’s. Bucky knows Steve like the back of his hand and though he may not have him the way he wants, he’s got him in all the ways that are most important.

 

 

 

 

 

_But they’re pushing their luck  
Hard but they must  
Risk it all for love. _

Conor Oberst, Gossamer Thin

**Author's Note:**

> i deserve absolutely nothing less than prison for this.
> 
> the amount of research i did for this fic is almost zero, so if there are things that are insanely off please hmu! i also have only seen tfa once (a few years back) because im too scared to watch it again so if ive messed up entirely pls lemme kno! 
> 
> you can follow me on tumblr @ dykecrowleys and on twitter @ jimmysbluess


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